About Us

St Mary's Church at Swillington is a welcoming, worshipping community, witnessing to God's love for everyone. We are here to serve our local community and our vision is to do all of this to the best of our abilities. 

We hold a lot of baptisms, weddings and funerals for our local community each year and offer a variety of social and worship occasions, as we strive to reach out and show God's care and love to our local community  

We are part of a Team of 3 churches (all called St Mary's) covering this area, known as the Team Benefice of Allerton Bywater, Kippax and Swillington; the web address is https://stmarysbenefice.org/

A Church presence here was mentioned in the Domesday records, with a stone building from the 14th Century and later additions. It is a very ancient and beautiful building and it is a priviledge to be part of its current living history.

The custom of throwing confetti at weddings originates from here. A  former Rector (1872-1878), Thomas Dealtry, (see feature on Thomas) who was formerly Archdeacon of Madras, is credited with the introduction here, of bringing over the Hindu custom of throwing rice over the bride and groom at a wedding. The rice later became confetti. Our Bridal Gate is very popular for photographs.