Virgin & Child, Chirbury.
There was formerly a fine old roodscreen at Chirbury church; but it was removed many years since to Montgomery. On the wall near the chancel arch we notice a curious tablet to 'Ric Lloid, 1589,' with the Lloyd arms, and a skull, or 'memento mori,' set in a deeply sunk circle. Another small mural tablet displays a shield and the letters H. M., the initials of Hugh Myddleton, the last Prior of Chirbury. The font, which is large and extremely archaic-looking, was rescued some years ago from a neighbouring garden, where it had long done duty as a water-trough! From its close resemblance to certain ancient holy-water stoups, recently exhibited at Shrewsbury, Mr. Burd, the vicar, considers this font was originally the holy-water stoup of the earlier monastic church.
There is a curious entry in the Parish Book, for the year of grace 1808, which goes to shew it cost more in those days to pay for ale, to assuage the Psalm Singers' thirst, than to defray the cost of their musical instruction! Payment was made, in 1604, to provide 'a bell and cordes to kepe the dogge out of the Churche, in tymes of divine service and preachinge'—autre temps autre mœurs.
Out in the churchyard, near the vestry door, lie the mortal remains of a former vicar, his brother, and their two wives, whereof the united ages amounted to 378 years, or the respectable average of over 94 years each. A portion of a richly moulded pillar, or rather 'respond,' and some beautiful thirteenth-century floor tiles in the porch of an adjacent house, are remains of the old monkish church.
Some few years ago a small bronze matrix, representing the Virgin and Child, was dug up by chance in Chirbury churchyard, and is now in the possession of the vicar, by whose courtesy we are enabled to give a sketch of a cast from it. The late Mr. Bloxam considered, from the costume and the pose of the figure, that this interesting matrix dates from about the latter part of the fourteenth, or the beginning of the fifteenth century. It is of a kind very rare, if not unique, in this country.
In Chirbury vicarage is preserved a very valuable Library of Chained Books, probably the most complete private collection of its kind in this country:
'Antique Books—rare old Books—
Gathered from many old corners and nooks!'
The books, 207 in number, treat mainly of theological matters, and are of various dates from 1530 to 1684; most of them retain the iron chains and swivels by which they were fastened in the cabinet. They probably formed part of the library established at Montgomery Castle by George Herbert, the poet and divine; and were transferred to their present resting place by the Rev. Edward Lewis, who, during nearly half of the seventeenth century, was vicar of Chirbury.
Being a man of strong Puritan leanings, Parson Lewis was badly treated by the Royalists. One Sunday morning, when the vicar was in the act of addressing his flock, a troop of horsemen rode into the church, haled the good pastor out of his pulpit, and carried him prisoner to Captain Corbet, who at the time was in command of the King's forces in that locality.