Memorials of Shrewsbury / being a concise description of the town and its environs, adapted as a general guide for the information of visitors and residents

by Henry Pidgeon

BATTLEFIELD CHURCH,

According to the foundation of King Henry the Fourth, consisted of five secular canons, and among other endowments possessed the churches of St. Michael within the Castle of Shrewsbury, and also St. Julian’s, in the same town. The clear annual revenues of the college at the dissolution being £54. 1s. 10d. as stated by Tanner.

The fabric, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, stands in the centre of a pasture field, and consists of a nave, chancel, and finely proportioned tower, crowned with eight pinnacles and a richly decorated frieze and parapet. The choral division, from the style of the windows, was undoubtedly erected in the time of the founder, and the western portion under the auspices of the Very Reverend Adam Grafton, Dean of the Collegiate Church of St. Mary, Shrewsbury, Archdeacon of Salop, &c. &c. a person of great eminence in his day, and who possessed much architectural taste. His name is inscribed on the east side of the tower as warden of the college in 1504. Length of the church, including the tower, 94 feet.

The roof of the nave and chancel having fallen in from decay early in the last century, the latter was restored and supported by four doric pillars. The interior is neat.

In the south wall is the piscina and the sedilia for the officiating priests. In one of these is a curious wooden figure, called “Our Lady of Pity.” It represents the Virgin seated and bearing on her knees a dead Christ.

The eastern window is of five divisions, and contains some remains of the stained glass with which this church was once enriched. The other portion having been taken down during a repair of the fabric some years since, was either lost or destroyed, through the negligence of the person to whom it was entrusted.

The subjects comprised a history of the death of John the Baptist, with various portraits of the knights who fell on the King’s side in the battle at this memorable place. The crowned heads of King Henry the Fourth and his Queen, the portraits of a bishop or abbot, and the head of John the Baptist in a charger, may yet be distinguished, and are tastefully pencilled. The red and yellow colours throughout are particularly vivid. A beautiful border of foliage, with a mutilated inscription, is at the base of the window.

At the east end of the north wall is a handsome florid gothic monument to the memory of the late John Corbet, Esq. of Sundorne, who died in 1817. The basement is after the model of an ancient altar tomb, from whence rises five panelled buttresses with mouldings supporting the canopy, which consists of four pointed ogee arches crocketed and crowned with finials. The interior is a richly groined vault, and at the angles are small turrets. The whole is beautifully worked in grained free-stone from the neighbouring quarry of Grinshill.

The nave of the church is roofless: on each side are three elegant mullioned windows, with tracery of different devices. In the walls are corbels formed into grotesque heads, on which rested the timbers that supported the roof.

The shaft of the ancient font (sunk in the ground) stands at the north-east angle of the pointed arch which separates the nave from the tower. The second floor of the tower is singularly furnished with a fire-place, having a chimney formed within the thickness of the wall and opening outside beneath the belfry window.

A tabernacled niche above the chancel window contains the crowned statue of Henry the Fourth: the right hand once sustained a sword, and on the same side also hangs the scabbard.

The college stood at the east end of the church, the moat which surrounded it being still visible. Near this part is a field called the “King’s Croft,” in which were placed a portion of the royal army. The troops of Hotspur appear to have been chiefly stationed on the north side.

On the south side of the church is a small cemetery, in which is deposited the remains of the late Rev. Edward Williams, M.A. who for nearly half a century was the Minister of this parish—loved and honoured by his flock as a spiritual father, and the remembrance of whose virtues and christian instruction still lingers like a lovely twilight. He died January 3d, 1833, aged 70 years. [212]