Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Shrewsbury

This is a parish church of outstanding architectural importance, with origins in the 12th century and major additions and alterations continuing through the 14th century. The building is constructed of red and white sandstone with leaded roofs.

The church comprises a west tower and spire, a nave with clerestory and two aisles, transept chapels, and a chancel with a south chapel. The original structure was probably an aisleless cruciform church with a crossing tower and transept chapels.

The four-stage west tower features a west door set in a square chamfered stepped arch with a round-arched window above. The upper storeys contain a clock and paired traceried bellchamber lights, which are additions in white stone. The tower has an embattled parapet with traceried finials and a turret in the north-east angle, and is crowned by a spire with lucarnes.

The north aisle is shallow-roofed in Perpendicular style, incorporating the lean-to structure of an earlier aisle. A north porch was added in 1897 in flamboyant Decorated style, with a north doorway featuring a simple chamfered round arch. The porch roof is vaulted with a central boss depicting the crucifixion, and the outer arch has paired shafts with ball flower decoration and an ogee hoodmould.

The nave clerestory and aisles are constructed of coursed and squared white sandstone. The north aisle contains three 3-light Perpendicular windows, divided into bays by buttresses, with a continuous plinth and sill band. The clerestory is similarly articulated by buttresses capped with finials, with paired foiled Perpendicular windows.

The north transept is of coursed and squared red sandstone, though the west wall is a Victorian renewal with paired lancets. A triple window in the north wall features clustered banded shafts and a sill band. A stair turret occupies the north-east angle. A blocked Romanesque window survives in the north wall with shafts having fluted capitals.

St Nicholas' Chapel projects to the east with a Perpendicular window with heavy hoodmould and a small 2-light window above, partly obscuring a reticulated 3-light window in the east transept chapel. The east transept chapel is faced in coursed and squared white sandstone but is clearly built over an earlier red sandstone structure.

A vestry projects from the chancel, added by Paley and Austin in 1884. The chancel itself dates to around 1170 and is of coursed and squared red sandstone. It features a triple tiered lancet in the north wall and paired lights in a clerestory which is an addition in white stone. The east wall is almost entirely filled with a 7-light reticulated traceried window, renewed in 1894. A similar window appears in the east wall of Trinity Chapel, which was added in the mid-14th century, though much of the stonework has been renewed.

Trinity Chapel contains ornate Decorated tracery in four south windows, divided into bays by buttresses with pinnacles. A small door in the western bay is a Victorian insert in Perpendicular style. The chapel incorporates a recumbent effigy of Simon de Leburn, the reputed founder.

St Anne's Chapel forms the south transept, dating from around 1170. It is constructed of coursed and squared red sandstone and features a triple Early English window with banded shafts and a small Romanesque doorway with chevron decoration to the archway. A panelled door is dated 1672.

The south aisle is contemporary with the north aisle and similarly constructed, with earlier coursed and squared red sandstone raised in white stone. The south porch incorporates an earlier structure dating to around 1200, the roofline of which is visible in the south wall. The main archway of this early porch is a round arch with chevron decoration and chamfered mouldings to clustered shafts, and has a stair turret in its east angle.

Internally, the west tower contains an ornate traceried screen in an Early English arch to the nave, with cylindrical responds bearing foliate capitals. The screen has paired ogivally-arched doors with royal arms above. The nave arcade comprises four bays with round-arched arcading carried on clustered shafts with foliate capitals. Paired 2-light clerestory windows above are 14th-century additions. The panelled roof features ornate quatrefoil panels with pendants and angels carved on the principal cambered tie beams. The scar of an earlier roof line is visible in the west wall.

A wide Decorated chancel arch opens to the chancel. Exposed stone walls in the north aisle reveal the building's construction phases: rough rubble in the lower section with coursed and squared rubble above. The steep gable of a former porch is visible over the north-west doorway. Encaustic floor tiles run throughout.

A Romanesque arch opens to the north transept, which has a suspended panelled and painted ceiling with pendants and Gothick traceried memorial panels on the west and north walls. A monument by John Carline dates to 1825-30. A deep embrasure for the altar forms a tiny separate chapel with a hidden upper room.

Clustered shafts respond to the east transept arch, giving access to St Catherine's Chapel. This chapel contains an arched tomb embrasure in the north wall, an incised alabaster slab portraying two figures, and a medieval encaustic tiled floor. These two chapels are balanced on the south by St Anne's Chapel, refurbished with 20th-century screens and a suspended ceiling, and the later Trinity Chapel.

Early English arches open from the chancel on north and south, and wide Early English arches open to the transepts. The chancel has an encaustic tiled floor and a tripartite lancet window in the north wall with advanced shafts. Remains of 12th-century sedilia are visible in the south wall. A traceried reredos with gilded and painted panels adorns the altar, which is accompanied by riddle posts capped with angels. Various 18th-century memorial stones line the walls, including a memorial to Mary Morrell by Thomas Farnolls Pritchard. An organ by Binns occupies the north side. The chancel roof is panelled in Perpendicular style with gilded bosses.

The vestry to the north of the chancel contains Mannerist timber panelling to a corner fireplace incorporating painted scenes of Shrewsbury in round-arched panels.

The church contains extensive stained glass of great importance. The north aisle contains 15th-century glass representing scenes from the New Testament and the lives of the saints, largely from Treves Cathedral. Similar glass appears in St Catherine's Chapel. The Trinity Chapel's east window, created in 1846, is a copy of a painting by Murillo by David Evans, and incorporates fragments of earlier glass assembled as a collage. Fifteenth-century glass from Liege appears in the south wall, with two replacement windows by Betton and Evans.

The chancel contains a Jesse window to the east, dating to 1327-1353 but restored, originally from Greyfriars, Shrewsbury. The north wall displays scenes from the life of St Bernard. The south aisle contains glass from Liege and Treves, mostly from the early 16th century and acquired in 1845, including scenes from the life of St Bernard and St Martin of Tours. The vestry displays a series of 16th and 17th-century Flemish roundels portraying scenes from the Old Testament.