St Mary’s Church, Shrewsbury

St Mary’s proved to be the most welcoming of the churches I visited in Shrewsbury, kept open daily by volunteers. I was greeted as I entered by a very enthusiastic volunteer, whose name I never got, who offered to give me a brief rundown of the church which I really enjoyed and told me which parts of the church to take a closer look at. The church is pretty popular because the day before while dining out at a restaurant I got chatting to a couple at the next table and they also told me what to look out for at St Mary’s.

The church as it stands is now the only complete medieval church in Shrewsbury. The first church on the site may have been built on top of a pagan site in the 7th century, then expanded and built on by successive generations.

Multiple people told me to pay particular attention to the stained glass, which did prove to be beautiful. Though most of the windows are only 200 years old (the originals having been destroyed through the years) in the 19th century one of the reverends – William Gorsuch Rowland started buying up medieval glass from churches, mostly from Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. The most spectacular is the so called Jesse Window with its depictions of Old Testament kings and prophets.

Other things to keep an eye out for are the Victorian tiled flooring…

…and the 15th century carved oak ceiling.

There is also this wonderful stained glass in the South Chancel

There are also the usual tombs and effigies – I particularly liked this one of Colonel Cureton.

St Mary’s has what is reported to be the third tallest spire in England and comes with an interesting if disturbing history. In 1739 Robert Cadman a man who had performed many stunts in the past, decided to slide down a rope from the top of the spire across the River Severn. However one of the ropes he was wearing snapped and he fell head first on to the ground in front of the church before a no doubt extremely shocked crowd. He was only 28.

A lovely and welcoming place it is a redundant church which means it is no longer used for worship so in this sense is largely used for tourists. Entry is free but there is a contactless donation screen set at £3 or you can buy one of the guidebooks, as I did.