A guide, descriptive and historical, through the Town of Shrewsbury

by W. A. Leighton

THE OLD POST-OFFICE,

which forms with it a court, entered from the street by a gateway. These premises were erected in 1568 by George Proude, draper, bailiff in 1569, and member of a family formerly of considerable note in our town.

We now approach the only remaining portion of

OLD ST. CHAD’S CHURCH,

consisting of the Lady Chapel on the south side of the choir. The two semicircular arches, still visible in the masonry of the outer walls, communicated with the choir and south transept. The north-west angle is flanked by the great south-eastern pier of the central tower, and at the opposite corner are the remains of a staircase buttress. The southern and eastern sides are each lighted by two pointed windows, three of which are divided by elegant trefoil tracery. The south-western window is plainer, and of an earlier date than the rest. On the outside of the north wall are three stone stalls, with groined roofs, originally on the southern side of the altar, and used by the officiating clergy during the celebration of the mass. The roof is of a plain oak panelling.

This chauntry chapel was first erected in 1496, but having subsequently fallen into decay was nearly re-edified in 1571, at the expense of Humphrey Onslow, Esq. of Onslow, in this parish, for the reception of the altar tomb, (now in the Abbey Church,) of his nephew the Speaker Onslow, who died at Onslow during a visit to his uncle. After the Reformation it acquired the name of the Bishop’s Chancel, from being used as a consistory court at the visitations. Its present use is as a receptacle for the monumental memorials rescued from the wreck of the old church.

This church, when perfect, was a plain heavy, solid pile, totally devoid of ornamental sculpture on the outer walls, and from its situation on a commanding eminence, presented from a distance, a fine, solemn, cathedral-like appearance. It was cruciform, and comprised a nave, side aisles, transept, choir, a broad low central tower, and chauntry chapels north and south of the choir. The architecture was chiefly of the Anglo-Norman and lancet styles of the 13th century, with some subsequent additions of the 15th and 16th centuries. [109]

Early in the summer of 1788 considerable fissures were observed in the north-western pier of the tower, which continuing to increase, Mr. Telford was employed to examine and report the cause. On inspection, it was discovered that the foundations had been undermined by graves heedlessly made too near the walls, and that the pier, in consequence, had given way; that the tower and the whole of the north side of the nave were in a most dangerous state, and the chief timbers of the roof decayed. He recommended that the tower should be immediately taken down, the pier rebuilt, and the other parts of the fabric properly and substantially secured. This reasonable advice through ill-judged economy was fatally rejected, and a stonemason employed to cut away the infirm parts of the pier, and to underbuild it, without lessening any of the incumbent weight of the tower and bells. The workmen accordingly commenced, and proceeded in their operations for two days; but on the third morning, July 9th, 1788, just as the chimes struck four, the ruinous pier gave way, the tower was instantly rent asunder, and falling on the roofs of the nave and transept with a tremendous crash, involved those parts in one indescribable scene of desolation and horror. Many portions of the building still remained standing but so great was the panic occasioned by the catastrophe that they were all immediately taken down, with the exception of the present chapel.

The collegiate establishment of St. Chad consisted of a dean, ten secular canons, and two vicars choral, and was founded soon after the subjugation of Pengwern, in the 8th century, by Offa, king of Mercia, who, as tradition states, converted the palace of the kings of Powis into his first church. In Edward the Confessor’s time, this church held twelve hides of land, which it retained at the compilation of Domesday. Between the years 1086 and 1326, other considerable possessions were acquired by the college, so that at the dissolution their revenues amounted to the clear yearly sum of £49 13s. In 34th Henry VIII. on the apprehension of a dissolution, the last dean, Sir George Lee, granted a lease of the deanery, (with the exception of certain tithes previously disposed of) to Humphrey Onslow, Esq. for sixty-one years, at a rent of £10, and a payment of £4 6s. 8d. to a curate to celebrate divine service in the church. On the dissolution of colleges, 2nd Edward VI., the crown leased the collegiate property to George Beston, Esq. for a term of twenty-one years; and two years afterwards, without any notice being taken of that gentleman’s interest, it was appropriated to the Free Schools, in which it is now vested.