“The superior and dean of this collegiate church had, in common with those of other Saxon foundations, the right of hereditary succession, and even claimed a privilege of alienating the property to other than religious uses. In the year 1150, when monastic institutions were universally popular, and the colleges of the secular clergy had fallen into disrepute, Richard de Belesme, then dean of St. Alkmund’s, voluntarily surrendered the estates of the deanery, which lay at Lilleshall, towards the endowment of an abbey of canons regular of St. Augustine, about to be erected on that spot made sacred by the sepulchre of the patron saint of his church; and so great was his zeal for this new institution, that he solicited and obtained the consent of the Pope and King Stephen for dissolving the college entirely, and for transferring all its estates to the new abbey. Thus stripped of all its landed property, the benefice sank from a collegiate establishment to a poor vicarage, which continued in the patronage of the monks of Lilleshall till the dissolution, when it became vested in the crown.” The old church was a spacious structure, exhibiting various styles of architecture, from the Anglo-Norman period to the middle of the sixteenth century. Of its antiquity, however, few features remain; for the panic caused by the sudden fall of St. Chad’s church, induced the parishioners of St. Alkmund to petition parliament to pull down the body of the old church, and erect a new one on its site. The modern building is in the ancient pointed style of architecture; an oblong square, eighty-two feet by forty-four feet, with a recess for the altar. The ancient tower, terminated with crochetted pinnacles, remains, and is seventy feet high, surmounted with a chaste and elegantly proportioned spire, one hundred and fourteen feet—making a total of 184 feet from the ground. Over the altar is a window of painted glass, executed about fifty years ago by Eginton, representing Evangelical Faith, in a female figure as large as life kneeling on a cross, with the eyes elevated and the arms extended towards a celestial crown, which appears amidst the opening clouds, This window was erected at a cost of two hundred guineas. The church is handsomely fitted up, and will accommodate a congregation of 800 persons. Upon the gallery, at the west end, is a good organ, erected by subscription in 1823. The tower contains a peal of eight bells, recast in 1813. The sound of church bells was supposed to be very efficacious in chasing away the spirit of darkness by our superstitious ancestors. The following curious notice will shew that they were not at all times proof against infernal agency:—