Church Of St Mary De Crypt

Church of St Mary de Crypt

Parish church on Southgate Street in Gloucester. First recorded around 1140. The building is mainly from the 14th century, late 15th century and early 16th century, but incorporates some 12th and 13th century structure and features. Extensive restoration was undertaken in 1844-5 by S. W. Daukes and J. R. Hamilton, with further restoration in 1866, 1876, 1903, and 1908. In 1908 the tower battlements and pinnacles were removed as unsafe. The church is constructed of ashlar and dressed stone in courses, with slate roofs.

The plan is cruciform, with an aisled nave of three bays, a south porch, a crossing with tall central tower, transepts of one bay, and a chancel of three bays with slightly shorter north and south chapels. There is a crypt below the west end of the nave and vaults below the chancel.

The west front facing the street has a steeply pitched gable-end wall to the nave and aisles. A renewed or re-cut semicircular arched doorway in the centre is 12th century but mostly renewed or re-cut in the 19th century, with nook-shafts and a moulded arch with billet hoodmould enclosing a tympanum carved with Agnus Dei in bas-relief above a lintel carved with diaper. Above the doorway is a large inserted late 14th century six-light window with foiled panel tracery. On each side, lighting the aisles, is a late 14th century three-light window with similar tracery. The gable is coped with a cross at the apex.

On the south side of the nave is a 14th century two-storey end-gabled porch with diagonal corner buttresses with offsets, an arched doorway, and a single-light window above to the upper room. In the re-entrant angle with the nave on the west side of the porch is an octagonal stair turret with a moulded string course at nave eaves level, a crenellated cornice and capped by a stone spire surmounted by a foliated finial. In the gable-end of each transept is a tall 14th century four-light window with foiled panel tracery.

The 14th century central tower has two stages with slightly projecting panelled corner buttresses. On each face of the tower is a full-height three-light window divided at mid-height by a transom, with infilled panels below the transom and open tracery panels above to the belfry stage. A crowning moulding formerly surmounted crenellated parapets with tracery panels and pinnacles.

The chancel has a clerestory window to each bay and flanking the east gable-end wall are diagonal corner buttresses with three offsets each surmounted by a pinnacle with gablets and a crocketed spirelet. In the east wall is a very tall 15th century four-light window with Perpendicular tracery and hoodmould. In the apex of the gable above the window is a niche and a cross on the apex. Set back from the east gable wall on both sides are the chapels, each of two bays, with lean-to roofs flanking the chancel. In the short projection of the chancel on each side is a two-light window with a central transom and foiled lights. Diagonal buttresses with two offsets are at the corners of the chapels, and in the east wall of each chapel is an early 14th century four-light window with reticulated tracery in the south chapel and a 15th century window with Perpendicular tracery in the north chapel.

The interior has 13th century semicircular west responds to the nave arcades with moulded capitals and water-holding bases. Otherwise the arcades, with slender cruciform chamfered piers, were rebuilt in the late 14th century. In the porch is a ribbed vault, and above the crossing is a stone lierne vault. In the chancel are late 14th century arcades with clerestory added in early 15th century. In both arcades the western piers rise from the crowns of ogee arches over the doorways set in the stone. Arcaded screens separate the chancel from the chapels, and in early 20th century similar screens were inserted at the west end of both chapels.

In the east bay of the chancel on the south side are a triple sedilia and a piscina, and in the east bay on the north side are a single sedilia and an Easter sepulchre, all with elaborate ogee canopies set against panels of niches with canopies and with crowning string courses on both sides which continue to the east and form central transoms in the two-light windows in the east sides of the eastern bays.

On the east wall on each side of the altar is a restored statue niche with an elaborate polygonal, gabled and crested canopy. The reredos installed in 1889 is a triple arcade of carved Caen stone with gablets and crocketed pinnacles enclosing panels of Venetian mosaic with figures of Christ and apostles. In the altar a medieval stone mensa was replaced during restoration of 1844-5. On the wall surfaces are vestiges of early 16th century wall paintings.

Above the chancel the early 16th century timber roof has carved wooden bosses and angels playing musical instruments. In the south chapel is a 15th century piscina, refitted around 1930, with panelling by H Stratton Davis, as a memorial to Robart Raikes. Timber boarded roofs are above both chapels.

The stained glass includes the east window and a south window in the south chapel by Rogers of Worcester, around 1857. In the chancel the east window is said to be a copy of the medieval glass in Drayton Beauchamp church, Buckinghamshire.

Fittings include an early to mid 16th century pulpit carved with renaissance ornament and a sounding board, a 17th century communion table in the south transept, an early 18th century stone baluster form font, and an early 18th century civic mace rest.

Monuments include in the south chapel a recessed wall tomb reputed to be for Richard Manchester, died 1460, with an ogee arch and Perpendicular panels. A tomb chest with effigies removed is for Sir Thomas and Lady Bell, died 1567, with shields in lozenges and a moulded top. A wall monument to Dorothy Snell, died 1746, is by Peter Scheemakers, featuring a mourning female figure with a portrait medallion on which leans a weeping putto with overturned cornucopia and torch. In the north chapel is a Baroque monument to Daniel Lysons, died 1681, with a frontal kneeling figure in a segmental-arched recess framed by barleysugar columns supporting an entablature, with broken segmental pediment enclosing an achievement of arms, by Reeve of Gloucester. On a window sill is the sculpted bust from a former monument to Richard Lane, Mayor of Gloucester, died 1667. In the north transept are restored brasses to John and Joan Cooke, died 1544, founders of the Crypt Grammar School. In the north aisle are brasses of William Henshawe, died 1519, and his two wives, taken from St Michael's Church, Westgate Street, in 1959. A late 15th century grave-slab has an incised cross and inscription to Isabel Pole, wife of a mayor of Gloucester.

The late Perpendicular work is particularly fine, and its patronage is attributed to Henry Dene, Prior of Llanthony from 1461 to 1501.

This is a fine example of a town church, prominent in views down Southgate Street.