A guide, descriptive and historical, through the Town of ShrewsburyLeighton, W. A. (William Allport)
History
A guide, descriptive and historical, through the Town of Shrewsbury
Leighton, W. A. (William Allport)
Shrewsbury (England) -- Guidebooks
The present church, erected in 1749, on the site of an ancient irregular
structure which had become ruinous, is an oblong Grecian building of
brick and stone. The interior is handsome and conveniently fitted up.
Four Doric pillars on each side of the nave support the ceiling, which is
curved and decorated with considerable effect with carved foliated
bosses, preserved from the beams of the old church. Over the side
aisles, and at the west end, are commodious galleries, in the latter of
which is an organ by Fleetwood and Bucer, erected by subscription in
1834. In the central light of the large Venetian window in the chancel,
is a figure of St. James in ancient stained glass; and in the side lights
are the royal arms, and those of Lichfield and Coventry impaling
Cornwallis. The galleries on the north and south are lighted by large
circular-headed windows, containing the arms of Queen Elizabeth, the
town, and the families of Bowdler, Prynce, and Bennett.
The only existing portion of the old church is the slender square tower
at the west end. The basement is of red stone, and has on its eastern
side a remarkably acute and lofty arch opening to the nave. From this
rises a superstructure of grey stone in the style of the 16th century;
the upper chamber of which is lighted on every side by a broad short
pointed mullioned window. Above is a frieze of quatrefoil pannels, with
grotesque water-spouts projecting from the angles. An embattled parapet,
enriched with eight crocketed pinnacles, crowns the summit. In the tower
are six bells.
On the exterior of the south wall of the tower is a sculptured stone from
the old church, representing St. Juliana within a foliated tabernacle.
The south side of the church was, in 1846, stuccoed over, stone pillars
inserted between the windows, and surmounted with a cornice and stone
parapet.
The church-yard next the street was also enclosed by a pierced parapet
stone wall, and the entire structure substantially repaired at the
expense partly of the parish and of the late Rev. R. Scott.
The edifice contains only one monument of any antiquity; a coarse marble
slab, inscribed in Longo-bardic capitals, to a member of the family of
Trumwin, of Cannock, in Staffordshire.
The modern memorials most worthy of remark, as recording men “useful in
their generation,” are those to Mr. John Allatt, the beneficent founder
of Allatt’s School; Mr. Robert Lawrence, the public-spirited coach
proprietor, to whose exertions we owe the great Holyhead Road, and the
establishment of the first mail coach to this town;—and to the
elegant-minded Hugh Owen, Archdeacon of Salop, one of the learned authors
of the “History of Shrewsbury.”
We now reach
THE TOP OF THE WYLE,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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