Market Deeping is a market town in the South Kesteven district of the county, 5 miles N of Peterborough. The church is built of ashlar and coursed limestone rubble and stands to the W of the town centre. It consists of a W tower, an aisled nave with a clerestorey and a S porch and a chancel with a N vestry, formerly a chapel. The tower dates from 1440, and the nave is 12thc in origin, its doorway reset in the S aisle. The arcades date from the 13thc, the N being early and the S late. The aisles were rebuilt in the 15thc, and the chancel restored and its arch replaced by Fowler in 1878. Romanesque sculture is recorded here from the S nave doorway and in the arch to the former N chapel.

The Domesday Survey does not distinguish between the settlements of Deeping St James, West Deeping and Market Deeping. A holding of 3 carucates and 4 bovates belonged to Almaer and Arnbiorn and Fredegaest in 1066, and to Geoffrey de Cambrai in 1086. Peterborough Abbey also had soke over 5 manors totalling 2 carucates and 6 bovates. There was also sokeland there of the manor of Tallington, rated at 4 bovates and held by Alvred of Lincoln.

A market was granted by Henry III in 1220 to William Briewer to be held at the manor, and in 1304 King Edward I granted a market and a fair to Joan, widow of John Wak, confirmed with the addition of her son and heir Thomas Wak by Edward II in 1308.

There is disagreement between Pevsner and the List Description on the dates of the two nave arcades. Pevsner datses the N to the early 13thc and the S to c.1300; the list description has the N in the late 12thc and the S in the 13thc. We prefer early and late 13thc. dates for N and S respectively.

The presence of waterleaf capitals and a keeled roll in the S doorway indicate a date in the 1170s or '80s for both features.