St Mary's Church, Melton Mowbray
| St Mary's Church, Melton Mowbray | |
|---|---|
 St Mary's Church | |
| 52°45′49″N 00°53′11″W / 52.76361°N 0.88639°WCoordinates: 52°45′49″N 00°53′11″W / 52.76361°N 0.88639°W | |
| Country | England |
| Denomination | Church of England |
| Churchmanship | Broad Church |
| Website | Website |
| History | |
| Dedication | St Mary |
| Architecture | |
| Status | Active |
| Functional status | Parish church |
| Heritage designation | Grade I listed |
| Designated | 24 October 1950 |
| Administration | |
| Parish | Melton Mowbray |
| Deanery | Framland |
| Archdeaconry | Archdeaconry of Leicester |
| Diocese | Diocese of Leicester |
| Province | Province of Canterbury |
| Clergy | |
| Rector | The Revd Kevin Ashby |
| Honorary priest(s) | The Revd Graham Spencer |
| Asst Curate(s) | The Revd Catriona Cumming |
| Laity | |
| Reader(s) | Ted Hutchin, Malcolm Britton, Jean Bowes, Linda Pearson |
| Organist/Director of music | James Gutteridge |
St Mary's Church, Melton Mowbray is a parish church in the Church of England located in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. By 2016, the church, described as "one of the finest parish churches in Leicestershire" had fallen into a poor state of repair and was deemed "unfit for purpose" leading to an appeal for £2m to restore it.[1]
Features
St Mary's Church is the largest and "stateliest" parish church in Leicestershire,[2] with visible remains dating mainly from the 13th-15th centuries. The stonework in the lowest section of the tower, which has Norman windows, dates from 1170, although there were certainly one or more Anglo-Saxon churches on this site before the Norman one. It is built on a plan more usual for cathedrals and the 100-foot tower dominates the town, and is a rare example of a parish church with aisled transepts (one of only five in the country) a feature usually found only in a cathedral. It contains a number of notable monuments including the tomb of Roger de Mowbray, 1st Baron Mowbray and others dating from the 14th to the 18th century; also a memorial tablet to equine artist John Ferneley (1782 to 1860).[3]
The church has a large choir containing around 40 members. It forms part of the Framland church trail along with 14 other churches in the 'Framland area'. Copies of the guide to the church trail are available from Melton Tourist Information Centre.
Bells and carillon
The belfry contains ten bells. The earliest bell (No.6) is by John of York dating from the fourteenth century. Most of the rest have been recast. Until 1802 there were only six bells: then two more were added and in 1894 a further two made the total ten. In addition there is a small sanctus bell which dates from the seventeenth century.
The carillon on which the chimes are played three times a day were restored in 1938 through a bequest by Alice Henton. This restoration involved a new clock to replace the previous one dating from the early nineteenth century.
List of Rectors
- 1562 Miles Bennes
- 1578 Edward Turner
- 1599 Isaac Cooper
- 1613 Zachary Cawdray
- 1660 John Dowell
- 1690 Simon Henley
- 1731 John Hardy
- 1740 Ffoulk Middleton
- 1741 John Middleton
- 1773 Thomas Ford
- 1820 Thomas Godfrey
- 1832 John Halifax
- 1839 Robert Croughton
- 1866 William Colles
- 1889 Gilbert Karney
- 1891 Canon Richard Blakeney
- 1924 John Llewellyn Davies
- 1928 Canon Percy Robson
- 1937 Canon Harold R. Bates
- 1946 Canon Charles Maurice Strettell Clark
- 1965 Canon George Herbert Codrington
- 1981 Canon Donald Edward Boughton Law
- 1994 Canon Charles Jenkin
- 2009 Kevin Ashby
Organ
The church has a large three manual pipe organ by Haydn Morton of 1929 which was rebuilt by J. W. Walker & Sons Ltd in 1955. A specification of the organ can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register.
List of organists
Taken from handwritten list in the church on the organ console:
- Thomas Hickson 1846 - 1880
- Claude Ferneley 1880 - 1890
- L. Camidge 1890 - 1900
- Percy Jones 1900 - 1914
- Malcolm Sargent 1914 - 1924
- William Hunt 1925 - 1928
- Percy George Saunders 1928 - 1930[4] later organist of Wakefield Cathedral
- William Dean Pearson 1930 - 1937[5] - 1940
- Lt. Col. Skentelbury 1941
- Cecil Clarke 1942 - 1946
- Harold L. Barnes 1946 - 1966
- John A. Bellamy 1966 - 1968
- Eric Bennett 1968 - 1973
- Michael Bryan Hesford 1973 - 1978
- Ian Major 1978 - 1982
- Robert Kalton 1982 - 1987
- Douglas Hollick 1987 - 1988
- John Wilks 1988 - 1991
- John Clark 1991 - 1998
- Anne de Graeve 1998 - 2002
- Keith Morgan 2002-2005
- James Gutteridge 2005 - current
References
- ↑ "Appeal to revamp St Mary's Church in Melton Mowbray". BBC news. 22 October 2016. Retrieved 23 October 2016.
- ↑ Guide to St Mary's Church, Melton Mowbray. W. G. Hoskins
- ↑ British Listed Buildings - Parish Church of St Mary, Melton Mowbray, www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk, Accessed: 12 February 2015
- ↑ The Succession of Organists of the Chapel Royal and the Cathedrals of England and Wales from c.1538, Watkins Shaw. Oxford. 1991
- ↑ Who's who in Music. Shaw Publishing. 1937. p.227
- Thompson, Charles Henry (1950). The Story of St Mary's Church Melton Mowbray. Gloucester : British Publishing Co.