“THE OLDE HOUSE,”
was recently discovered an ancient painting, on canvas, fixed upon a board forming the mantelpiece over the fire-place of the room. In the centre is a shield of arms, France and England quarterly, surmounted by a royal crown, and on either side a pomegranate and Tudor rose (white and red conjoined), twice repeated. The ground of the whole dark-maroon, ornamented or damasked with white wavy feathery embellishments. Above, on the plaster of the wall, is a rude painting of heavy scroll-work ornaments; and it is thought that the rest of the walls, if the wainscot were removed, would be found covered with similar paintings.
In the absence of all positive evidence, conjectures can only be hazarded as to the cause of these arms, &c. having been placed here.
One thing, however, is certain that they are connected, in some way with Queen Mary, daughter of Henry VIII. and Queen Katherine of Arragon, inasmuch as the pomegranate was first introduced as a royal badge of England, upon Katherine’s marriage with prince Arthur, son of Henry VII. Now if we consider this painting contemporary with an inscription on the wainscot of the adjoining drawing-room, “PETRVS ROBERTS M M SECO 1553,” and interpret it thus, “PETRVS ROBERTS MARIÆ MATERNITATEM SECO, 1553. I Peter Roberts decide (the question of) the maternity or legitimacy of Mary, 1553.” Then we may regard it as a loyal demonstration on Mary’s accession to the English throne by some one of those many friends and adherents who so warmly sympathised in her early adversity, in the unjustifiable degradation of her royal mother and her own consequent exclusion from the succession to the throne.
If, however, the painting is considered to be anterior in time to the inscription on the wainscot, and such really appears to be the case from the style of the wainscot, then it may be connected with the possibility of the Court of the Marches of Wales, over which Mary presided in 1525, with the title of “Princess of Wales,” having been held here, since the Council House, where the Court usually sat afterwards, was not built till 1530; or it may be the memorial of an unrecorded visit of Queen Mary to our town; or the residence of one of her household, or of some member of the Council, amongst both of whom were many Cambrian names, and the following,—Ap Rice, Baldwyn, Basset, Bromley, Burnell, Burton, Cotton, Dod, Egerton, Pigot, Rocke, Sydnour, Salter, more or less connected with Shrewsbury; or it may have been the mansion of one of the many Welsh families of distinction, with whom Mary formed an intimacy during her residence in the Marches; or, as the crest of the Rocke family still remains on the leaden water-piping, and who in later times are remembered to have resided therein, it may have been the mansion of Anthony Rocke, who was a servant of Queen Katherine, and a legatee in her will to the amount of £20; and of whom the Princess Mary thus writes in one of her letters:—“For although he be not my servant, yet because he was my mother’s, and is an honest man, as I think, I do love him well, and would do him good.”
Which of these guesses may be the true solution, we are unable at present to decide.
We now pass down Church Street to
ST. ALKMUND’S CHURCH,
founded in the early part of the 10th century, by Ethelfleda, daughter of the great Alfred, and lady of Mercia, who endowed it with eleven manors. Edgar the Peaceable added other lands and possessions, and placed here a dean and ten prebends. At the time of Domesday the church held in Shrewsbury twenty-one burgesses, twelve houses for the canons, two of the hundred hides, for which the city paid Dane-geld, besides nine of the above manors, (the other two having been unjustly wrested from it, and fallen into lay hands,) in all, about 4020 acres, of which 620 were in demesne, and a rent of £8 8s. 8d. received for the remainder, which, with other rents of the amount of 13s. 8d. produced a revenue rather exceeding £500 of modern currency. Part of these estates, held of the church by Godebold, a Norman priest, and subsequently by his son, Robert, persons in great esteem with our Norman earls, were involved by some means in the confiscation of the property of the last Earl, Robert de Belesme, and fell into the hands of Richard de Belmeis, Bishop of London, to whom Henry I. had entrusted the government of Shropshire. On the death of this prelate in 1127, the king granted them to the Bishop’s nephew, Richard de Belmeis, also Bishop of London, and canon of this church. In his possession they did not long continue, for in 1147 he effected the dissolution of the college of St. Alkmund, and with the consent of King Stephen and Pope Eugenius III., transferred his own and all the other prebendal estates, to augment his brother Philip de Belmeis’s recent foundation of Lilleshall Abbey, in this county, by which means the benefice sank from a collegiate establishment into a poor vicarage.
After the dissolution of Lilleshall Abbey, the vicarage continued in the crown until 1628, when Charles I. sold it to Rowland Heylin, Alderman of London, a zealous member of a society for founding lectureships in populous towns, and augmenting small livings. On the suppression of this society in 1663, on the supposition of its being favourable to puritanical principles, St. Alkmund’s, with the other advowsons, purchased by the society, became vested in the crown, in whose patronage it still remains.
The old church was a spacious structure, exhibiting specimens of ecclesiastical architecture, from the Anglo-Norman period to the middle of the sixteenth century. The original form was a cross with nave, side aisles, transept, chancel, and western tower, but from the subsequent erections of chauntry chapels, the external elevation was very irregular. On the sudden fall of St. Chad’s Church, in this town, an unfounded apprehension of the instability of this curious building was excited and cherished in the breasts of the parishioners. Deliberations were speedily set on foot, and with ill-judged haste it was resolved to demolish the venerable structure, and erect a new church of more contracted dimensions on a part of the site. The strength and firmness of the masonry of the ancient but undecayed walls presented almost insurmountable obstacles to the efforts of the workmen employed to rend them asunder, and convinced the parishioners, when too late, of their premature folly. [97]
The present church was opened for divine service on 8th November, 1795, and cost in the erection £4000. It is of freestone, in the style usually denominated Modern-Gothic. The interior, though destitute of the solemn majesty of gothic edifices, is handsomely fitted up, and well arranged for the accommodation of a numerous congregation. In the gallery at the west end, is a small but well-toned organ, by Gray of London, erected by subscription in 1823. The east window contains some modern stained glass, emblematical of Evangelical Faith, painted by the elder Eglinton.
Of the old church the only portion which escaped destruction was the western steeple, erected probably as late as the Dissolution. It consists of a slender, but well-proportioned square tower of three chambers, flanked by light double angular buttresses, gracefully diminishing in their ascent, and finished on the summit by broaches or semi-pyramidal abutments. From this rises a spire of the finest proportions, brought to an exquisitely taper point, and crowned by an open flower. This has recently been repaired and restored by Mr. S. P. Smith. Under the tower, an elegant pointed arch, recessed within a square opening, leads to the interior; on each side are the remains of holy water niches. Above is a handsome pointed window, with delicate mullions, containing in ancient stained glass, preserved from the old church, the arms of France and England quarterly, and those of Richard Sampson, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. The bell-story contains a light peal of eight bells, cast by Bryan of Hertford, in 1812, and is lighted by four semicircular windows.
Of the ancient tombs and monumental brasses which abounded in the old edifice, none are preserved in the present structure, which contains no memorial worthy of note, with the exception of a tablet to Chief Justice Jones, and one to the late Rev. R. Scott, B.D.
The parish comprises only a small part of the town, but contains many insulated portions of the neighbourhood.
Strong foundations of red stone are extensively visible in the houses and walls on the north-west side of the church yard, which may possibly be the remains of the Saxon college.
Immediately adjoining, at the top of the Double Butcher Bow, is a lofty timber house, conjectured to have been