English: St Mary, Whaplode. The unique church of St Mary was the first of the Norman Fenland churches and it was consecrated in 1125. Norman remnants still remain in the shape of four pairs of enormous pillars supporting four pairs of beautifully constructed arches. The Norman chancel arch still bears much of the original decoration. There is much evidence of several periods of added construction. The north transept was a late Mediaeval addition, sealed off from the church some 200 years ago and used as the village school. There is an early 17th-century ten-poster tomb of Sir Anthony and Elizabeth Irby, with his and his wife’s recumbent effigies and their five children kneeling around the tomb. The pulpit with tester is 17th-century and the reredos 18th-century. There are two Mediaeval coffins which when opened were found to contain chalices.