THE ABBEY OF ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL.
which owes its foundation to Roger de Montgomery, the first Norman Earl of Shrewsbury, and arose on the site of a small wooden church dedicated to St. Peter, built in the reign of Edward the Confessor, by Siward, a Saxon gentleman, then resident in Shropshire. The earl peopled his abbey with monks of the Benedictine rule, whom he invited over from a religious house founded on the estates of Mabel, his first Countess, at Seez, in Normandy. During his last illness the warlike founder entered himself a monk of his own foundation, and received the tonsure on the 14th July, 1094. He had previously obtained from the Abbey of Clugni, in Burgundy, the kirtle of St. Hugh, which holy vestment he occasionally wore, doubtless in anxious hope of its communicating some portion of the sanctity of its former possessor. Three days after his assumption of the monastic garb he breathed his last, and was honourably interred in the Lady Chapel, between the two altars. His son Hugh, the second earl, who was slain by Magnus, King of Norway, near Castell Aber Lleiniog, in Anglesea, in the year 1098, also received interment in the cloisters.
On the confiscation of the Earldom of Shrewsbury, in the reign of Henry I., our Shrewsbury Abbots, became tenants in capite, and were thenceforth under the necessity, (as it was deemed in those days,) of attending the King in his Parliaments, as Barons or Peers of Parliament, which honour was continued to them by Edward III., who limited the number of mitred or Parliamentary Abbots to twenty-eight, and enjoyed by them down to the Dissolution.
In 1137, during the Abbacy of Herbert the third Abbot, the monastery was enriched through the exertions of the prior, Robert Pennant, by the acquisition of the bones of the martyred Virgin St. Wenefrede, which were translated from their burial place at Gwytherin, in Denbighshire, and placed with becoming solemnity in a costly shrine, prepared for their reception in the Abbey church. To this shrine, countless numbers of pilgrims and diseased persons continually resorted to pay their devotions, and to experience cures, which, according to assertion, must have been little less than miraculous; and the wealthy vied with each other in the costliness of their offerings. In addition to these treasured bones, the Monks appear to have possessed, in the reign of Henry II., a most extensive and varied assortment of other reliques, doubtless of equal value and efficacy. In 1486, the Abbot Thomas Mynde, incorporated the devotees, both male and female, of St. Wenefrede, into a religious Guild or fraternity founded by him in her honour. A great bell was also dedicated to her memory.
During the various visits with which the English Sovereigns from time to time honoured our town, it is highly probable that they took up their residence in the Abbey, and there can be little doubt that the Parliament of Edward I., 1283, [126] and that of Richard II., 1398, called the Great Parliament, were held within the spacious apartments of the monastery.
The original endowment was very slender, but within a century and half after the foundation the abbatial property comprised seventy-one manors or large tracts of land, twenty-four churches, and the tithes of thirty-seven parishes or vills, besides very extensive and valuable privileges and immunities of various kinds. In 26 Henry VIII. their possessions were found to be of the yearly value of £572. 15s. 5¾d. equal to upwards of £4700 in the present day. The monastery was dissolved on 24th January, 1539–40, and pensions assigned to the Abbot, Thomas Boteler, and the seventeen monks.
On the dissolution the burgesses presented a petition to the crown that the Abbey might be converted into a college or free school, which request Henry refused to accede to, alleging as a reason his intention of erecting Shrewsbury into one of his proposed thirteen new bishoprics. The diocese was to have comprehended the counties of Salop and Stafford, and the endowment to have consisted of the monastic revenues. We learn from undoubted authority that John Boucher, Abbot of Leicester, was actually nominated Bishop of Shrewsbury; [127] and hence doubtless arose the appellation of “Proud Salopians,” founded on the tradition that our townsmen rejected the offer of having their borough converted into a city, preferring to inhabit the First of Towns.
On the 22nd July 1546, Henry VIII. granted the site of the dissolved Abbey to Edward Watson and Henry Herdson, who, the next day, conveyed the same to William Langley of Salop, tailor, in whose family it continued for five generations until 1701, when Jonathan Langley, Esq. devised it to his friend Edward Baldwyn, Esq., who by will dated in 1726, devised it to his sister Bridget, the wife of Thomas Powys, Esq. for life, with remainder successively in tail male to her sons Henry, Edward, and John Powys. In 1810 the premises were sold by the Trustees of the will of Thomas, Jelf Powys, Esq. eldest son of the above named Edward Powys, to Mr. Simon Hiles, in whose devisees they are now vested.
The living is a vicarage, and prior to the dissolution was in the presentation of the monastery, but after that event it remained in the crown, until 1797, when it was transferred to the Right Honourable Lord Berwick, in exchange for certain advowsons in Suffolk.
From time immemorial certain lands in the Parish were given to and vested in the Churchwardens and their successors “for the maintenance and repairing of the Churches of the Holy Cross and St. Giles, and of either of them.” Consequently there has never been any need of a Church-rate. The lands, &c. are chiefly let out upon long building leases, and the present annual income is about £150, which upon the falling in of the several leases will of course be greatly increased. The Vicar and Churchwardens are a Corporation, with the power of making leases, &c. of the landed possessions of the said Churches, and have a common seal which is appended to such documents. The seal is kept in a chest secured by three locks, and the keys are severally in the possession of the Vicar and the two Churchwardens. It is of brass, of the vesica piscis form, and has in the centre a baton or mace, and on either side a clothed arm projecting towards the centre, that on the dexter side holding a pastoral crook, that on the sinister side, a naked sword: the ground-work studded with stars, and around the margin this inscription, * S COMMVNE DE FFORYATE MONACHOR’. This seal was, according to an entry in the Parish Book, “viewed and confirmed” by the Heralds, 16 Sept. 1623, for which 10s. was paid.
The site of the Abbey comprises ten acres. An embattled wall surrounded probably the whole. Of the once stately monastic buildings the remains are inconsiderable, and consist of the Church, the Infirmary, the Dormitory, the Reader’s Pulpit of the Refectory, the Guesten Chamber, and the Cloister of the Abbot’s Lodging.
The space of ground on the east of the present church, containing 7300 square yards, known lately by the name of “The Abbey Garden,” whereon formerly stood the Choir and Lady Chapel of the monastery, was in 1840 consecrated as a public Cemetery.
The present parochial church of The Holy Cross embraces within its walls the nave, side aisles, north porch, and western tower of the Abbey church. It is principally constructed of red stone, and though bearing deep marks of mutilation, is still venerable and spacious, and exhibits many curious and interesting features of ancient architecture. The principal entrance is at the west end under the tower, through a pointed doorway, richly laced with mouldings, skilfully inserted within a deeply recessed semicircular arch, the exterior rib of which springs on each side from a Norman pillar with indented capital. Immediately above rises a magnificent and elegantly proportioned window, its sides and arch enriched with delicate mouldings; in the deep hollow soffits of which is a series of pannels, having foliated arch heads. The outer mouldings of the arch rise high above it, forming a spring canopy, enriched with crockets, and ending in a flower; from which again springs very elegantly a niche or tabernacle, with a high straight-sided canopy, flanked with a small pinnacle at each impost, containing a figure of Edward III. in complete armour. The body of the window to the spring of the arch contains two stories, divided horizontally by embattled transoms, and perpendicularly by six upright mullions into seven compartments. The two central mullions, as they approach the spring of the arch, bisect the head into smaller arches on each side, and these are further subdivided into others, which are uncommonly acute, the interstices of all filled with several tiers of small open pannelled tracery, mingled with trefoiled and quatrefoiled foliage, in beautiful and varied profusion. To the angles of the tower are attached square shallow piers, ending in pointed canopies, and midway of each is a niche, containing statues of St. Peter and St. Paul. Two small double windows light each side of the upper story of the tower, the summit of which is terminated by an unsightly battlement of brick.
The eastern portion of the nave is separated on either side from the side-aisles by three semicircular arches, resting on short massive round pillars, with shallow bases and filletted capitals, in the plainest and earliest Anglo-Norman style. Above, the remains of the triforium of the ancient church may be distinctly traced. The western portion has, on each side, two pointed arches in the pure Gothic of the 14th century, delicately lined with mouldings, and rising from well-proportioned clustered pillars, with capitals composed of a series of small horizontal mouldings. A clere-story, pierced with handsome Gothic windows, crowns this part of the edifice; and similar windows are continued along the north and south sides of the tower.
A lofty and graceful pointed arch, springing from high clustered imposts, opens from the nave to the tower, and affords a view of the fine west window; the upper portion of which is filled with the armorial bearings of Richard II.; his uncles, the Dukes of Gloucester, Lancaster, and York; and the alliances of the noble families of Fitzalan and Stafford, Earls of Arundel and Stafford, and the lower part with those of the late Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Howley, William Lord Berwick, patron, the Rev. R. Lingen Burton, vicar, Dr. Butler, Bishop of Lichfield, Archdeacon Bather, and Rev. Richard Scott, (the donor). The whole area of the tower is occupied by a capacious gallery, erected in 1817, for the accommodation of the children of the National School, in which stands a fine-toned organ, made by Gray of London, and purchased by subscription.
The eastern extremity of the nave is terminated by a wall, built between the two great western piers which once supported the central tower, in which is inserted a fine triple Norman window, [133] elaborately adorned with mouldings, containing figures of David, Solomon, St. John, St. James, St. Peter, and St. Paul, executed by Mr. David Evans with his usual taste. Underneath this window is a stone altar screen, composed of an arcade of five Norman arches, with rich and varied mouldings, surmounted by a pierced balustrade. The central arch contains a painting of the Angels appearing to the Women at the Sepulchre, by Mr. John Bridges, of London. The holy table is fenced by a STONE RAILING, uniform in style. The whole of the stone work of the eastern portion, together with the windows on the south aide of the church, were designed and executed by Messrs. Carline and Dodson of this town, through the pious liberality of the late Rev. R. Scott, B.D.
The western ends of the side aisles are separated from the church, and used as a vestry and schoolroom. At their eastern extremities are the arches which communicated with the transept, now blocked up and pierced with square-headed windows, in which are some ancient shields of arms, in stained glass, preserved from the monastic buildings. The north-east window of the north aisle contains a large figure of St. Peter, the arms of the See of Lichfield, of Lord Berwick the donor, and of thirteen incumbents since the Reformation. The opposite window of the south aisle is of a rich mosaic design, enclosing shields of the marriages of the family of Rocke.
The remnant of the screen of a chauntry chapel, in the north aisle, decorated with a series of small foliated niches, each divided by a buttress and finial, and containing traces of sculptured imagery, appears to indicate the situation of the chauntry of the guild of St. Wenefrede.
The ancient and curious font originally belonged to the church of High Ercall, in this county. In the pavement, near the vestry-door, are many interesting specimens of emblazoned tiles; and a font, the basin of which, representing an open flower, wound with drapery festooned from the mouths of grotesque heads, was found among the ruins of the Abbey, and is fixed on a pedestal formed of the upper part of the ancient cross, called the “Weeping Cross,” and sculptured with the Visitation, the Virgin and Child, the Crucifixion, and a figure in the attitude of devotion.
Communicating with the north aisle by a fine semicircular arch, overspread with massy round mouldings, rising from clustered piers, is the spacious vaulted north porch. The exterior portal is formed by a deeply recessed square opening, the mouldings of which fall over the angles far down the sides, ending in mutilated busts. Within this is a graceful pointed arch, rising from a round column on each side. Above are two chamber stories, each lighted by a small window. On the right and left, a tabernacled niche, extends the whole height of the upper stories. An ill-designed stone parapet crowns the gable.
And now
“let’s talk of graves, of tombs and epitaphs;”
of which many ancient ones, either found among the ruins, or removed hither on the demolition of other sacred edifices in the town and county, are preserved in the ample side-aisles; the more remarkable of which, we shall briefly enumerate in the order of their supposed dates:—
In the north aisle, a cumbent figure, brought from St. Chad’s, of a person in the robes and coif of a judge.
In the south aisle, a monument brought from St. Giles’ church, of the shape en dos d’ane, and probably of the early part of the thirteenth century. The sculpture consists of a rich foliated cross, in high relief: under which is a figure in priestly vestments with uplifted hands, also in relief, and the insignia of the priestly office, the chalice, bell, book, and candle, in outline. Round the edge of the stone are the letters, T : M : O : R : E : U : A.
Opposite to the last, a cumbent effigy of a cross-legged knight, in linked armour and surcoat, removed from the priory church of Wombridge, in this county, and conjectured, from the tradition of that neighbourhood, to commemorate Sir Walter de Dunstanville, the third lord of Ideshale, a great benefactor of that priory, who died 25th Henry III., 1240.
In the north porch, two very singular figures, which originally lay on a large double altar-tomb in the style of the fifteenth century, in old St. Alkmund’s church. One represents a knight in plate-armour of the fifteenth century, partly covered with the monastic dress, and the other a person in the dress of a hermit of the Romish church.
Near the founder’s tomb in the south aisle, an alabaster altar-tomb, bearing recumbent figures of a man, “plated in habiliments of war,” and his wife, originally erected in Wellington church, in this county, to William Charlton, Esq. of Apley Castle, who died the 1st July, 1544, and Anne his wife, who died the 7th June, 1524.
At the eastern extremity of the north aisle, a large altar-tomb with cumbent effigies, to the memory of Richard Onslow, Esq. Speaker of the House of Commons in the 8th Elizabeth, who died 1571, and his lady Katherine Harding; formerly in the Bishop’s Chancel of Old St. Chad’s Church.
In a corresponding situation in the south aisle, an altar-tomb of alabaster, in the Grecian style of the age of James I., bearing two cumbent figures; an alderman in his civic “robe and furr’d gown,” and a lady in the scarlet gown formerly worn by the lady-mayoresses of our town, commemorating Wm. Jones, Esq. who died the 15th July, 1612, and Eleanor his wife, who died 26th February, 1623; the grand-father and grand-mother of Chief Justice Jones. This was removed from St. Alkmund’s.
Above Speaker Onslow’s monument, a mural monument, from St. Chad’s, in the Grecian taste of the seventeenth century, representing a gentleman in a ruff and long gown, and a lady with a long veil thrown back, kneeling under two escallopped arches: above, a lady in a richly laced habit and coif, and a little girl kneeling;—inscribed to the memory of Thomas Edwardes, Esq., who died 19th March, 1634, and of Mary, the wife of his son, Thomas Edwardes, Esq., died July 18th, 1641.
Above Jones’s monument, a mural monument, from St. Alkmund’s, with the figure of an alderman as low as the waist, with falling band, representing John Lloyd, Esq., Alderman of Shrewsbury, who died 16th June, 1647.
Near the vestry is a mural monument to the Rev. R. Scott, with the following inscription:—
AS A MARK OF GRATITUDE TO
THE REVEREND RICHARD SCOTT, B.D.
WHOSE OWN WORKS ARE BETTER PRAISE
THAN THE WORDS OF OTHERS,
THIS MEMORIAL IS PLACED HERE BY THE PARISHIONERS
OF THE HOLY CROSS AND ST. GILES.
HE REBUILT THE EASTERN WINDOW OF THIS CHURCH, ADDING
A PART OF THE STAINED GLASS TO IT.
HE GAVE THE ALTAR SCREEN AND STONE RAIL, THE SERVICE
OF COMMUNION PLATE, WITH THE BOOKS, AND ALL
OTHER FURNITURE OF THE ALTAR.
HE REPEWED BOTH THE AISLES, THE NORTHERN BEING GIVEN
FOR THE USE OF THE POOR.
HE BUILT THE SIX WINDOWS IN THE SOUTH AISLE, AND THE
TWO SMALLER WINDOWS AT THE WESTERN END OF THE
CHURCH, ADDING STAINED GLASS TO THE
GREAT WESTERN WINDOW.
HE GAVE NEW FIGURES OF ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL TO BE
PLACED WHERE THE OLD HAD BEEN AT THE WESTERN
FRONT OF THE TOWER.
HE RESTORED THE ARCH OF THE WESTERN ENTRANCE.
HE ALSO GAVE MANY OTHER LESSER GIFTS TO THIS CHURCH.
HE RESTORED ST. GILES’S CHURCH, MAKING IT AGAIN
AVAILABLE FOR THE SERVICE OF GOD.
HE GAVE TO THE SAME CHURCH, PARTLY IN HIS LIFE TIME AND
PARTLY BY BEQUEST, THE SUM OF ONE THOUSAND POUNDS
VESTED IN THE PUBLIC FUNDS, AS AN ENDOWMENT
TOWARDS THE SUPPORT OF A CURATE.
HE DIED ON THE 6TH OF OCTOBER, 1848.
BLESSED ARE THE DEAD WHICH DIE IN THE LORD FROM
HENCEFORTH; YEA, SAITH THE SPIRIT, THAT THEY MAY REST FROM
THEIR LABOURS AND THEIR WORKS DO FOLLOW THEM.REVELATION XIV. 13.
Numerous other mural monuments and inscriptions of more modern dates, many of which are chaste and elegant, record deceased members of the principal families of the parish.
Southwestward of the church, on the margin of the Meole Brook, stands,