Higham Ferrers is a small market town in the Nene valley, in the district of North Northamptonshire. It forms a single conurbation with Rushden to the N, and is 13 miles E of Northampton. The church stands to the E of the market square, and is the central building of a complex that also includes the Bede House to the S and the Chantry Chapel of All Souls immediately W of the W front. St Mary's is a large and imposing building of coursed limestone, part banded with ironstone, and limestone ashlar dressings. It has an aisled double nave, i.e. twin naves with aisles to N and S, and twin chancels, the N chancel built as a Lady Chapel. There is a S porch and a W tower with a tall spire. The original church was an aisled building with a W tower begun c.1220 and the tower completed c.1250. The N aisle was widened to the width of the nave c.1320, the Lady chapel added and the original chancel refenestrated with reticulated windows. The church is magnificent inside and out, with its tall spire, rebuilt after a collapse in 1631 and its spacious interior. The appearance owes much to the 15thc. work attributed to Henry Chichele, born in Higham Ferrers who became Archbishop of Canterbury. All of the fabric therefore postdates the 12thc, but the church houses a mysterious object in use as a holy water stoup, which is recorded here despite the lack of any known provenance.

Higham Ferrers was a Domesday settlement held by Countess Gytha of Hereford in 1066 and by William Peverel in demesne in 1086. It was assessed at 6 hides and included a priest, indicative of a church at that time. After his son, also William, forfeited the manor it was granted to Robert de Ferrers for life, then reverting to the king. It was bought from King John by William de Ferrers , 4th Earl of Derby in 1199.

The church was originally given by William Peverel to his priory at Lenton (Notts), but after the manor was forfeited the advowson was successfully claimed by William de Ferrers in 1237.

The pillar piscina has been in the church since at least the late 1990s, but is not mentioned in Pevsner (1973), Bailey and Pevsner (2013) or the List Description. It was brought to our attention by Tony Vials, to whom we are most grateful, but research into it has failed to produce any provenence. Photographs of it are found on the Internet, taken by serious art historians but without comment except from Charles Slade (Stiffleaf), who adds that it 'seems to be a modern pastiche'. This is always possible, of course, but the worn condition and the sheer amount of work involved would argue against it. It is possible that the shaft and the lion base, the most convincing parts of the assemblage, are 12thc while the bowl was later made to fit them.

Enquiries of the parish clergy elicited the response that a previous incumbent, Canon Roger Davies (vicar 1966-88), was in the habit of collecting otherwise unwanted items from other churches in the benefice, and that this was one of his acquisitions. We are grateful to the Reverend Louise Bishop for this information.

It is unlikely to have been a stoup in the middle ages, as holy water was not made freely available to laymen for fear of its misuse. Structurally it appears to be a pillar piscina, but such objects are normally installed against the chancel or a chapel wall alongside the altar where they would be used to wash vessels and drain liquids used in the mass. They would normally drain directly into the ground outside the church rather than into the normal drainage system. It would be extremely unusual and inconvenient to have a freestanding piscina, as this clearly is, as the plinth, shaft and bowl are all carved on all faces. Piscinas are sometimes carved, but rarely with figural scenes and never, so far as I know, with hunting scenes. Nothing is particularly comparable, but comparisons may be made with pillar piscinas at Brendon, Devon, which is freestanding with a bowl elaborately carved with birds and beasts, Chilcomb, Hampshire, a freestanding piscina with a waterleaf bowl, Holy Cross, Shrewsbury, which has all four faces of the bowl decorated with birds, beasts and foliage, and Swannington, Norfolk, with scenes of knightly combat on the bowl.