Mission church and school built in 1870. The church is dedicated to St Polycarp, a martyred 2nd century Bishop of Smyrna in Asia Minor, and is the only dedication to him in the county and diocese. The building is of red brick with black string courses and decoration in rubbed brick and limestone, all under a slate roof. The architect was James Fowler of Louth, with the builder being a Mr Brown of King's Lynn. The church consists of a combined nave and chancel with spirelet belfry, gabled porch and vestry. It was erected by public subscription costing £620, with £300 coming from funds held in trust by the vicar of Spalding, £25 from the vicar of Holbeach, and £25 from the vicar of Holbeach St John's, and a donation from the Incorporated Church Building Society's Mission Chapel Fund. The land it occupies was donated by local heiress Miss Charlotte Charington of Spalding who was born in nearby Fleet Fen and also funded the erection of St Paul's Church in Fulney and the restoration of the medieval church at nearby Gedney Hill. The foundation stone was laid on 27th March 1870 and it was licensed on the 15th September 1870. There is no graveyard. The structure was designed as a combined school and church, to meet the educational and spiritual needs of this isolated southern part of Holbeach parish, 8 miles distant from the original parish Church of All Saints, and 4 miles from its chapel of ease at Holbeach St John. Prior to this, the village's residents were "entirely dependant for religious instruction on two Methodist chapels, Wesleyan and Reformed". When it opened it served as a public elementary school under a certified teacher during the week, and as a church on Sundays with the Vicar of Holbeach St John's giving a weekly afternoon service. Externally, the nave features two pairs of three light lancets to the south and one to the north, plus a west window of two light lancet and rose beneath a vesical window in the apex of the gable. Two light lancets are to the vestry and either side of the chancel, and there is an east window of three lights beneath a rose window in the apex of the gable. Decorations include a stone roundel on the porch gable with a Star of David motif and wrought iron cross finial, a date stone marked '1870' in a roundel on the vestry gable, and a stone cross finial on the chancel with inscription 'HAIL JESU'. A foundation stone at the north-east corner is marked with an inscription around a central cross '+ Posit + XXVII. MAR. MDCCCLXX'. The spirelet is in slate with lead flashings topped by a bronze weathercock. There was formerly a chimney on the north wall to the west of the vestry but this was recently taken down. Internally, the porch features a floor of red and black quarry tiles laid in chequerboard pattern, and two wooden benches. Within the church the floor is timber throughout, with a raised chancel. All the walls are of exposed brick with stringcourses mirroring the exterior. The roof has a King-post with simple pierced spandrels of 6 bays and a plain plastered ceiling. A timber dado is along the north and south walls, stepped up within the chancel, and from which is suspended a curtain. At the rear of the nave the dado carries many iron hooks presumably for pupils' coats. In the middle of the north wall is a hooded stone fireplace, in front of which projects a large rectangular stone slab on a metal plate, likely to protect the floor from a now removed pot belly stove. There is a five-sided pulpit with gothic arcading, candelabra and book stand. A small octagonal stone font, complete with angular hood and doors adorned with ornate wrought iron strap hinge, is built into the wall near the south-west corner. This font carries the inscriptions 'ONE LORD ONE FAITH ONE BAPTISM' around the bowl and 'SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME' with letters coloured in purple above the niche. Of particular interest are the six surviving pews in the south aisle that convert into desks. These have a cast iron frame on runners marked 'National Desk', 'Sidebotham & Co Patented', and 'Blackfriars Street, Manchester'. These face west when in use as desks and east when as pews, indicating that the teacher likely taught from the west end. Six ordinary pews are in the north aisle. Both these and the convertible pews are movable and not fixed. There is also a wooden vicar's chair and desk between the fireplace and pulpit. Other fittings include a communion table, communion rail, modern harmonium, hymn board, and wall clock made in Spalding. A more recent addition is a simple wooden rude cross, which has been suspended from an iron bar between the chancel and nave that includes a number of hoops, suggesting it originally carried a curtain to separate the two. A brass war memorial with red enamelled cross was recently rediscovered in the vestry and has now been reinstated in the nave. The memorial is dedicated to the men educated at the school that fell during the First World War. {1}{2}{3}{4}{5}{6}