St Mary the Virgin, Shrewsbury

St Mary the Virgin is a Grade I former parish church on St Mary's Place in Shrewsbury, now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. It is the largest church in the town and the only complete medieval church remaining there. Clifton-Taylor included it among his finest English parish churches.

Overview

The listing describes an original twelfth-century structure with fourteenth-century additions, in red and white sandstone with leaded roofs: a four-stage west tower and spire, nave with clerestory and two aisles, transept chapels, and chancel with south chapel. The chancel is of about 1170. A vestry was added by Paley and Austin in 1884. Tradition associates the collegiate foundation with King Edgar; the church later served as a royal peculiar. It was declared redundant in 1987 and vested in the Trust.

The interior has a four-bay nave arcade on clustered shafts, a panelled roof with angels on the cambered tie beams, and encaustic tiles. The great treasure is the stained glass, among the finest collections in England: a Jesse window of 1327-53 from the Greyfriars, Shrewsbury; fifteenth- and sixteenth-century panels from Trier and Liege; and scenes from the life of St Bernard. The fifteenth-century carved oak nave ceiling is dense with animals, birds and angels. Outside the west door an inscribed stone records Robert Cadman's fatal rope slide from the spire in 1739.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1344964
• Wikipedia: St Mary's Church, Shrewsbury