St Mary's Church, Shrewsbury

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Church in Shropshire, England

St Mary's Church, Shrewsbury
St Mary's Church, Shrewsbury, from the northwest
St Mary's Church, ShrewsburyLocation in Shropshire
52°42′31″N 2°45′05″W / 52.7087°N 2.7513°W / 52.7087; -2.7513
OS grid reference	SJ 493,126
Location	St Mary's Place, Shrewsbury, Shropshire
Country	England
Denomination	Church of England
Website	Conservation Trust
History
Founder(s)	King Edgar (?)
Architecture
Functional status	Redundant
Heritage designation	Grade I
Designated	10 January 1953
Architectural type	Church
Style	Norman, Gothic
Specifications
Materials	Sandstone

St Mary's Church is a redundant Anglican church in St Mary's Place, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building, and is under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust, the Trust designated St Mary's as its first Conservation Church in 2015. It is the largest church in Shrewsbury. Clifton-Taylor includes the church in his list of 'best' English parish churches.

Collegiate Church

St Mary's originated as a collegiate church (The Collegiate Church and Royal Free Chapel of St Mary the Virgin, a Royal Peculiar). According to tradition it was founded by King Edgar in the 10th century. By at least the 13th century, it was served by a dean and nine canons. Excavations in 1864 revealed the presence of an earlier church with a nave and an apsidal chancel. Building of the present church began in the 12th century, consisting of a nave without aisles, and a cruciform east end. A large west tower was added, and in about the 1170s the transepts were altered to provide altars for the canons. Construction of the aisles followed, first the south aisle with a porch. Work on the north aisle continued until the 1220s. The crossing was then rebuilt. In the early to mid 13th century the transepts were raised, and the chancel was lengthened and raised. During the 14th century the Trinity Chapel was added to the south of the chancel. In the following century, possibly about 1477 when a bequest was made to the church, further improvements took place, including the construction of a clerestory on the nave and chancel, which replaced the tower at the crossing and the chancel vault. At this time the transept roofs were reduced in height, a large east window was inserted, and larger windows were added to the aisles. It is possible that the spire was added to the west tower at this time.

Deans of St Mary's College, Shrewsbury

Richard c. 1180s
Robert of Shrewsbury c. 1186–7 – c. 1200
William Lestrange
Henry de Loundres 1203–1226
Walter of Kirkham 1226
Stephen de Lucy 1229
William de Houton 1232 – c. 1250
William of London 1262
Simon of Wycombe 1262–1272
John le Faukener 1272
William of Dover until 1282
Nicholas of Arras 1282 – c. 1286
John de Witham ca. 1291–1300
John of Kenley 1300 – c. 1305
Peter de Shendon 1305–1321
Robert of Hampton 1321–1327
Nicholas of Ludlow 1327–1341
Thomas de Baddeby 1341–1381
Richard Bromley 1381 – c. 1402
Thomas Standon 1402
Hugh Holbache 1407 – c. 1416
Thomas Rodbourne 1418–1424
John Shipton 1424–1444
John Burdett 1444–1449
John Launcell 1449
John Crecy 1457–1471
John Blackwin 1471–1472
John Whitmore 1472
Robert Reyfield 1498
Adam Grafton c. 1509 – 1513
Edward Higgins 1513
Richard Twyford until 1523
William Vaughan 1523–1540
Thomas Lloyd 1540
William Cureton c. 1548 – 1549

Parish Church

The church escaped any significant damage during the suppression of the college in 1548, or during the Civil War.

The first major restoration was carried out by Thomas Telford in 1788. The east window was enlarged in 1858 by S. Pountney Smith, who also reconstructed some of the roofs between 1864 and 1870. In 1884 Paley and Austin added a vestry to the north of the chancel. Work was performed on the chancel in 1889–92 by A. E. Lloyd Oswell. The top fell from the spire in 1894, causing much damage to the clerestory, and this was repaired by John Oldrid Scott.

The tower underwent a restoration in 1924–26 by the firm of Lloyd Oswell and Iredale. The church was declared redundant in 1987, and vested in the Churches Conservation Trust.

Ministers, ordinaries (officials) of the Royal Peculiar, and vicars of St Mary's, Shrewsbury

Robert Wylton, minister and ordinary, 1576
Edward Bulkeley, minister and ordinary, 1578
John Tomkys, minister and ordinary, 1582
Thomas Laughton, minister and ordinary, 1592
William Bright, minister and ordinary, 1597
Samuel Browne, 1618
James Betton, minister and ordinary, 1632
Samuel Fisher, Presbyterian minister and ordinary, 1646, ejected during the Interregnum 1650 for refusing the Engagement.

From 1651–1662 no priest.

Francis Tallents, a presbyterian divine, 1652. Ejected 1662.
Robert Fowler, minister and ordinary, 1662
Thomas Dawes, minister and ordinary, 1678
John Lloyd, minister and ordinary, 1715
Benjamin Wingfield, minister and ordinary, 1743
Edward Blakeway, minister and ordinary, 1763
John Brickdale Blakeway, minister and ordinary, 1794
Hugh Owen, minister, ordinary, archdeacon of Salop, 1826
William Gorsuch Rowland, minister, vicar, and ordinary, 1828
Oliver Hopkins, vicar and ordinary, 1852
Thomas Bucknall Lloyd, vicar, ordinary, archdeacon of Salop, 1854
Newdigate Poyntz, vicar, 1889
William Geoffrey Pennyman, vicar, 1910
Horace Edward Samuel Sneade Lambart, vicar, archdeacon of Salop, (later Earl of Cavan), 1918
Cyril Jarman, vicar, 1925
Ramsay Malcolm Bolton Mackenzie Father Mackenzie, vicar, 1938
Egerton Walters, vicar, prebendary of Lichfield, 1956
Horatio Henry Follis, vicar, 1969
Tom Frank Woolley, vicar, prebendary of Lichfield, 1971
Bernard Thomas Maddox, vicar, prebendary of Lichfield, proctor in Convocation, 1974-1987

Notable Curates

Arthur Winnington-Ingram, curate 1884–85, later Bishop of London.

Architecture

Exterior

The plan of the church consists of a four-bay nave, with north and south aisles, and north and south porches, a crossing with north and south transepts, a two-bay chancel with a vestry to the north, the Trinity Chapel to the south, and a west tower. The tower has four stages, the bottom three stages are in red sandstone, and the top stage in white sandstone. The bottom three stages are Norman in style, while the top stage is Perpendicular. In the bottom stage is a west doorway with a round arch of two orders. To the left of the doorway is a re-used Roman stone with a Lewis slot. In the next stage, over the doorway, is a clock face. The third stage contains paired Norman windows, and in the top stage are paired two-light transomed bell openings. The summit of the tower has an embattled pierced parapet, and crocketted pinnacles. There is a stair turret in the northeast corner. The spire is octagonal, and recessed behind the parapet. It carries three tiers of lucarnes. The spire is said to be the third tallest in England.

The windows in the north and south sides of the aisles and clerestory are Perpendicular. In the west wall of the south aisle is a round-headed lancet window, and in the west end of the north aisle is a pointed-headed window. The south porch is built in Grinshill stone. It is in two storeys, the lower storey being built in the 12th century, and the upper storey added in the 14th century. The upper storey has a two-light transomed window. The outer doorway has a round arch and three orders of shafts; the inner doorway also has a round arch, but with one order. There are small windows in the side walls of the porch. The south transept has a small Norman doorway and three lancet windows on the south side, and single lancet windows in the west side. The Trinity Chapel has four large three-light windows on the south, and a seven-light window on the east side. The east window of the chancel has eight lights. Above the north vestry are three stepped lancet windows. To the east of the north transept is a "complex corner" with a variety of windows. The north transept itself has 12th-century pilaster buttresses, a small north doorway, and lancet windows. The north aisle has Perpendicular windows and a porch. Within the porch is another Norman doorway, with one order of shafts.

Interior

Arcades and furnishings

In the opinion of the architectural historians John Newman and Nikolaus Pevsner, the nave arcades are "the finest piece of architecture in the church", each consisting of four wide bays, with semicircular arches. The oak ceiling of the nave has 15th-century carvings depicting birds, animals and angels. The Trinity Chapel contains a triple sedilia. The stone mensa of the medieval high altar was excavated in 1870 and placed below the present altar, which shares the same dimensions. The riddel posts and English Altar were erected during the remodeling of the sanctuary by Sir Charles Archibald Nicholson in 1931. The Altar frontals were worked and embroidered by Beatrix Mary Pennyman, wife of the vicar, during World War I. The octagonal font is Perpendicular, and is carved with arcading and (now headless) angels, The pulpit dates from 1853, it is polygonal, in stone, and designed by S. Pountney Smith. The floor of the church is tiled. The canopied clergy stall of 1897 was designed by C. E. Kempe; it was formerly in the chapel of Shrewsbury School. In 1729 John Harris and John Byfield designed and built a new three-manual organ to replace an earlier organ. This was rebuilt and enlarged in 1847 by Gray and Davison. The present four-manual organ dates from 1912.

Bells

There is a ring of ten bells, eight of which were cast in 1775 by Pack and Chapman at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, and the other two in by 1911 by John Taylor & Co of Loughborough.

St Mary's bells are inscribed thus; "We were all fixed here by voluntary subscription, in the year 1775." "Happiness to all worthy contributors." "Success to the Worshipful Company of Drapers." "Unanimity and welfare to all the inhabitants of Salop." "Peace and Felicity to this Church and Nation." "Prosperity to St. Mary's Parish." "E. Blakeway, M.A., Minister, J. Watkins, J. Warren, E. Elsmere, H. Kent, Churchwardens." "May all whom I summon to their grave, enjoy everlasting bliss."

To each inscription is added, "Pack & Chapman, London, Fecit 1775". An old bell from Battlefield, cast by Abraham Rudhall of Gloucester, was hung in a turret at the south-west angle of the chancel as a sanctus bell in 1871. The two treble bells have again been re-cast, and now bear the following inscriptions:- "W. G. Pennyman, Vicar. Edw. Burd , Wm. Alltree, A. E. Lloyd Oswell, H. Steward, Churchwardens." "Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be."

Stained glass

The stained glass is of various styles dating from the 14th to the 19th centuries, and was brought to St Mary's from elsewhere, much of it from Europe, in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is said that "no other church in the country has a collection to equal it". The "main treasure" is the east window of the chancel, which contains a depiction of the Jesse Tree. By tradition it was made for the Franciscan church in Shrewsbury, moved to St Chad's Church after the dissolution of the monasteries, and then to St Mary's in 1792. Although it was much restored in 1858 by David and Charles Evans, much of the original glass remains. This glass is dated between 1327 and 1353. Glass in the north windows of the chancel and the central part of the south aisle were made for the Cistercian Altenberg Abbey between 1505 and 1532. They depict scenes from the life of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, and were bought for St Mary's by Rev W. G. Rowland, the vicar in 1845, at a cost of £425 (£40,000 in 2014). Also in the south aisle are two windows from the church of St Aspern, Cologne. Windows elsewhere consist of part of a collection of 15th-century stained glass bought in 1801 by Sir Brooke Boothby at a cost of £200 (£10,000 in 2014). Some of this came from Trier, and the remainder from the Cistercian nunnery of Herchen. In the south chapel is glass from the church of Saint-Jacques in Liège. Elsewhere there is glass dating from the 16th century of Dutch and Flemish origin. Much of the 19th-century glass is by David and Charles Evans. In March 2007 some of the glass was loaned to the Schnütgen Museum in Cologne for their exhibition of 16th-century German stained glass.

Monuments

These include an inscription on a plaque on the tower to the memory of Robert Cadman, a tightrope walker who was killed in 1739 when his rope broke. Also in the tower is a recumbent effigy by Richard Westmacott junior depicting Col C. R. Cureton who was killed in India in 1848. Inside the west entrance of the nave is a brass upon marble plaque memorial to men of the 85th Regiment of Foot who died serving in the Afghan War of 1879–80. In the north transept is a wall memorial to Rev John Brickdale Blakeway, vicar of the church, and a local historian, who died in 1826. Also in the north transept are memorials to Nicholas Stafford, who died in 1473, and Admiral Benbow, (sculpted by John Evan Thomas and unveiled 1843) who died of wounds in 1702. The oldest memorial in the church stands in the arch between the chancel and Trinity Chapel. It is a tomb chest with the effigy of a knight, and probably dates from the 1340s. In the south aisle is a grave slab from about 1100 carved with a cross and interlacing. Trinity Chapel contains separate stone tablets to men of the Shropshire Yeomanry who died in the World Wars, besides a roll of honour listing names of those who died in the Second, and a sandstone parish war memorial, headed by a crucifix, to parishioners who died during World War I, with a list of names that include VC recipient W. N. Stone. Katherine Harley, a Suffragist, is also commemorated on the memorial; she was killed at Monastir in 1917, while nursing Serbian refugees. She was the sister of both Field Marshal Sir John French and the Irish Nationalist Charlotte Despard.

Churchyard

Thomas Anderson, a soldier in the Dragoons was executed, as a deserter and Jacobite sympathizer, near the Butchers' Arbour on Kingsland, Shrewsbury on 11 December 1752. He was the last English martyr for the Stuart cause. The Revd Benjamin Wingfield, in the face of official hostility, allowed Anderson to be buried in St Mary's Churchyard and read the burial service over the grave. The grave is situated in the south-western quarter of the churchyard.

Dr Samuel Butler, headmaster of Shrewsbury School and later Bishop of Lichfield, is buried in the churchyard where his Latin-inscribed tombstone is still visible.

The churchyard contains the plain sandstone war memorial cross to Shrewsbury townsmen who died in the two World Wars, erected 1920 after World War I by the "National Association of Discharged Sailors and Soldiers (Shrewsbury branch)" (predecessor of the British Legion). On corner posts of the stone kerbs are listed battles or campaigns from World War I in which the men died.

References

Citations

^ Historic England, "Church of St Mary, Shrewsbury (1344964)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 23 April 2012
^ Church of St Mary the Virgin, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, Churches Conservation Trust, retrieved 29 March 2011
^ Newman & Pevsner 2006, p. 526
Clifton-Taylor 1974, p. 253
Denton. English Royal Free Chapels p. 122. retrieved 16 April 2014
^ Newman & Pevsner 2006, p. 528.
Newman & Pevsner 2006, p. 529.
^ St. Mary's Church, Shrewsbury, St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury, archived from the original on 19 October 2010, retrieved 9 October 2010
Diocese of Lichfield: All Schemes (PDF), Church Commissioners/Statistics, Church of England, 2011, pp. 4–5, retrieved 11 April 2011
Newman & Pevsner 2006, p. 527
Newman & Pevsner 2006, pp. 528–529
Newman & Pevsner 2006, p. 530.
^ Newman & Pevsner 2006, p. 531
"NPOR [N04609]", National Pipe Organ Register, British Institute of Organ Studies, retrieved 1 July 2020
"NPOR [N04610]", National Pipe Organ Register, British Institute of Organ Studies, retrieved 1 July 2020
"NPOR [N04612]", National Pipe Organ Register, British Institute of Organ Studies, retrieved 1 July 2020
Shrewsbury S Mary V, Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers, retrieved 9 October 2010
^ UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
Newman & Pevsner 2006, pp. 530–531
Francis, Peter (2013). Shropshire War Memorials, Sites of Remembrance. YouCaxton Publications. p. 185. ISBN 978-1-909644-11-3.
Pidgeon, Henry (1851). Memorials of Shrewsbury. Oxford University: Published by J. H. Leake. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-903802-00-0.
Shropshire War Memorials, Sites of Remembrance, p.25.
Newman & Pevsner 2006, pp. 532–533.
According to Peter Francis, evidence for him living in Shrewsbury has not been found. It gives post-nominal initials of DSO and MC, neither of which he received, in addition to his VC.
Shropshire War Memorials, Sites of Remembrance. pp. 185–187.
Shropshire War Memorial, Sites of Remembrance, pp.117,185.
Thomas Phillips, James Bowen, Charles Hulbert,(1837) The History and Antiquities of Shrewsbury: From Its First Foundation to the Present Time, Comprising a Recital of Occurrences and Remarkable Events, for Above Twelve Hundred Years, Volume 1.p. 256
Shropshire War Memorials, Sites of Remembrance. p. 187.

Sources

Clifton-Taylor, Alec (1974), English Parish Churches as Work of Art, London: Batsford, ISBN 0-7134-2776-0
Newman, John; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2006), The Buildings of England: Shropshire, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-12083-4

v t e Buildings and structures in Shrewsbury
Civic	Shrewsbury Library Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery Shrewsbury Prison
Railway stations	Abbey Foregate Shrewsbury Shrewsbury Abbey Shrewsbury West
Educational	Belvidere School Meole Brace School Prestfelde School Priory School Shrewsbury College Shrewsbury High School Shrewsbury School Shrewsbury Sixth Form College Shrewsbury Academy Wakeman School
Hospitals	Royal Shrewsbury Hospital
Churches	Barnabas Community Church Greyfriars Christ Church, Shelton and Oxon Shrewsbury Abbey Shrewsbury Cathedral Shrewsbury Unitarian Church St Chad's Church St Mary's Church
Pubs	Golden Cross
Complexes	Darwin Shopping Centre New Riverside Shrewsbury Business Park The Parade Shopping Centre
Sports venues	Gay Meadow New Meadow
Historic	Coleham Pumping Station Ditherington Flax Mill The Mount Old Market Hall Shrewsbury Castle Town Walls Tower
Monuments	Lord Hill's Column The Quantum Leap
Bridges	Belvidere Bridge Castle Walk Footbridge English Bridge Kingsland Bridge Porthill Bridge St George's Bridge Welsh Bridge

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