St Mary's Church, Ottery St Mary | |
---|---|
![]() St Mary's Church from the south east | |
![]() | |
50°45′11.04″N3°16′44.03″W / 50.7530667°N 3.2788972°W | |
Location | Ottery St Mary, Devon |
Country | England |
Denomination | Church of England |
Churchmanship | Broad Church |
Website | ottervalechurches |
History | |
Dedication | St Mary the Virgin |
Consecrated | 1260 |
Architecture | |
Heritage designation | Grade I listed [1] |
Specifications | |
Length | 163 feet (50 m) |
Height | 71 feet (22 m) |
Administration | |
Province | Province of Canterbury |
Diocese | Diocese of Exeter |
Archdeaconry | Exeter |
Deanery | Ottery |
Parish | Ottery St Mary |
Clergy | |
Rector | Revd Lydia Cook |
St Mary's Church is a Grade I listed building, [1] a parish church in the Church of England in Ottery St Mary, Devon.
The church is part of "Churches Together in Ottery St Mary" which includes the churches of four other denominations in the town. [2]
The parish church of St Mary's has been referred to as "a miniature Exeter Cathedral". Like the cathedral it is cruciform in plan, with transepts formed by towers [3]
Nikolaus Pevsner describes the building as “lying large and low like a tired beast”. It is 163 feet (50 m) long, and the towers are 71 feet (22 m) high. It was consecrated in 1260, at which time the manor and patronage of the church belonged to Rouen Cathedral, as it had from before the Norman invasion. Pevsner assumes that the tower-transepts and the outer walls of the chancel date back to 1260, and that the towers were built in imitation of those at Exeter. [4]
This Grade I listed building is one of 107 Listed sites in the area. [5] The summary for the Listing provides this information: "Consecrated by Bishop Bronescombe in 1260. Altered and added to by Bishop Grandison circa 1330. Mainly Early English ... 2 towers above transepts .... The interior was restored drastically mid C19 by Butterfield and others". [1] The work in the 1300s included "rebuilding of the nave, and addition of the Lady Chapel at the east end and two chantry chapels either side of the chancel" according to a reliable source. Other renovations were completed circa 1520: "principally expansion of the north nave aisle, complete with elaborate, fan-vaulted ceiling and pendant bosses". [6]
In 1335 John Grandisson, Bishop of Exeter, bought the manor and advowson from Rouen and on 22 January 1338 established a collegiate foundation with forty members. He rebuilt much of the church, and the present nave, chancel, aisles and Lady chapel date from this time. The nave is of five bays, and the chancel, unusually long in proportion, is of six, with vestry chapels to north and south. [3] [4]
The church is noted for its painted roof and early sixteenth-century fan vaulted aisle, the Dorset Aisle, designed and commissioned by Cecily Bonville, 7th Baroness Harington, whose first husband was Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset. The church has ten misericords dating from the building of the church in 1350, five showing the arms of Bishop John de Grandisson. The church interior also has two medieval carved stone green men. Other interesting features include the tombs of Otho de Grandisson and his wife, the altar screen, sedilia, and a wooden eagle given by Bishop Grandisson. [7]
The college was dissolved on 24 December 1545 and this church began serving the parish, under the management of governors. The other buildings of the college were demolished. [6]
The building was closed on 21 May 1849 [8] for a full restoration by the architect William Butterfield. His alterations included lowering the floor level of the transepts, crossing and western part of the chancel to that of the nave, making the east end, designed for the needs of the collegiate foundation, more suitable for parochial use. [3] [4] All of the galleries were removed, except for that in the south transept which was retained for the organ. The pews were removed and substituted with open seating. The altar area was paved with encaustic tiles. The walls were scraped of plaster and cleaned. [9] The church reopened on 22 May 1850. [10] The restoration was achieved by voluntary donation, including one of £1,200 from Mr. Justice Coleridge.
New choir stalls were dedicated in 1908. [11] They were designed by John Duke Coleridge and paid for by Miss Mary Dickinson in memory of her father, the late Rev. Frederick Binley Dickinson.
The ancient altar screen had three vacant niches filled with sculptured scenes in 1934. [12] The sculptural work was done in Beer stone, by Herbert Read, sculptor of Exeter, funded by Mrs Winstanley in memory of her husband, Harold Winstanley.
There is a small stone plaque commemorating the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the south churchyard wall. Ottery St Mary parish registers are held in the Devon Record Office and begin in 1601.
Sir Ernest Mason Satow, scholar, diplomat and Japanologist, is buried in the churchyard, and a plaque inside the church, originally at the British Legation chapel in Peking, commemorates his life. [13]
On 26 September 2015, St Mary's was the location of the first ordination service in the Church of England to be led by a woman: Sarah Mullally, Bishop of Crediton, ordained two deacons as priests. [14]
The south transept (bell tower) houses the Ottery St Mary astronomical clock, one of the oldest surviving mechanical clocks in the country. It is commonly attributed to Bishop John de Grandisson, who was Bishop of Exeter (1327–69) and adheres to Ptolemaic cosmology with the Earth at the centre of the solar system. [15]
The clock was restored to working condition in 1907. [16]
The church has had organs since at least the 14th century, as they are mentioned in Bishop Grandisson's statues for the foundation of the collegiate church. By the time the college was dissolved in 1545, there were three organs, but whatever organs survived into the 17th century were destroyed in 1645 during the English Civil War.
Around 1828, Flight and Robson provided a new organ in the west gallery. This was moved to the south tower in 1849. Hele & Co carried out work in 1878 and again in 1901. After further work in 1934, Eustace and Alldridge from Exeter enlarged the organ by incorporating pipework by Willis and William Hill, and the organ was rebuilt again in 1990 by Michael Farley. A specification of the organ can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register. [17]
The church is in a joint parish with:
Exeter Cathedral, properly known as the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter in Exeter, is an Anglican cathedral, and the seat of the Bishop of Exeter, in the city of Exeter, Devon, in South West England. The present building was complete by about 1400 and has several notable features, including an early set of misericords, an astronomical clock and the longest uninterrupted medieval stone vaulted ceiling in the world.
Ottery St Mary, known as "Ottery", is a town and civil parish in the East Devon district of Devon, England, on the River Otter, about 10 miles (16 km) east of Exeter on the B3174. At the 2001 census, the parish, which includes the villages of Metcombe, Fairmile, Alfington, Tipton St John, Wiggaton, and West Hill, had a population of 7,692. The population of the urban area alone at the 2011 census was 4,898.
St Mary's Church is in West Derby, a suburb of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of West Derby, the archdeaconry of Liverpool, and the diocese of Liverpool. Its benefice is united with that of St James, West Derby. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building.
St Helen Witton Church, Northwich, is in the centre of the town of Northwich, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. The church is now known as "St Helen's, Witton" or "Northwich Parish Church". It is an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Chester and the deanery of Middlewich. Alec Clifton-Taylor includes it in his list of 'best' English parish churches.
Church of the Holy Cross, Crediton, formally the Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross and the Mother of Him Who Hung Thereon, is the parish church of the town of Crediton in Devon, England. The church is built on the site of what was the cathedral of the Bishop of Crediton in the former diocese until 1050 when the see was transferred to Exeter. A college of canons remained at Crediton, administering the buildings and life of the "collegiate" church.
John de Grandisson, also spelt Grandison, was Bishop of Exeter, in Devon, England, from 1327 to his death in 1369. Several works of art associated with him survive in the British Library, the British Museum and the Louvre in Paris.
St Mary Magdalene Church, Newark-on-Trent is the parish church of Newark-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, England. It is dedicated to Mary Magdalene and is the tallest structure in the town.
Calvary Episcopal Church is a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The parish was founded in 1855.
St Bees Priory is the parish church of St Bees, Cumbria, in England. There is evidence for a pre-Norman religious site, on which a Benedictine priory was founded by the first Norman Lord of Egremont William Meschin. It was dedicated by Archbishop Thurstan of York, sometime between 1120 and 1135.
St Mary's Church is a redundant Anglican church in St Mary's Place, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building, and is under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust, the Trust designated St Mary's as its first Conservation Church in 2015. It is the largest church in Shrewsbury. Clifton-Taylor includes the church in his list of 'best' English parish churches.
Colan Church also known as St Colan Church is a 13th-century church in Colan, mid-Cornwall, UK. Dedicated to St Colanus, it became a Grade I listed building in 1967. The vicars of St Columb Minor have served the church since the middle of the 20th century.
Ottery St Mary Astronomical Clock is a 14th-century astronomical clock in St Mary's Church, Ottery St Mary, in Devon in south-west England.
St Peter's and St Paul's Church is a grade II* listed building and is the parish church of the small market town of Holsworthy, Devon, England. The present church, built in the early English style, dates from the mid-13th century. Renovations in the late 19th century included the complete rebuilding of the chancel, the addition of a north aisle and the renovation of the nave and south aisle. The 15th-century three-stage west tower is 85.75 feet (26.14 m) high and houses a set of eight bells and a carillon. The first building on the site was probably a Norman Oratory built c.1130 and demolished in c.1250. Remnants of the oratory have been incorporated into the south porch.
The Church of St Mary of the Assumption is in Yorkshire Street, Burnley, Lancashire, England. It is an active Roman Catholic parish church in the diocese of Salford. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. It was built between 1846 and 1849 to replace a smaller chapel on a different site. The church was designed by Weightman and Hadfield in Decorated style, and a chapel was added to it in 1879.
The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin is the Church of England parish church of Bampton, West Oxfordshire. It is in the Archdeaconry of Dorchester in the Diocese of Oxford.
St James' and St Anne's Church is a Church of England church in Alfington, Devon, England. It was built in 1849 at the expense of Sir John Taylor Coleridge and designed by William Butterfield.
St Winnow's Church, St Winnow is a Grade I listed parish church in the Church of England in St Winnow, Cornwall.
St Andrew's Church, Moretonhampstead is a Grade I listed parish church in the Church of England Diocese of Exeter in Moretonhampstead, Devon.
The Church of St John the Apostle, Torquay, is a Grade I listed parish church in the Church of England Diocese of Exeter on Montpellier Road in Torquay, Devon.
St Philip's Church is a Church of England church in Weston Mill, Plymouth, Devon, England. The original church was built between 1912 and 1913 and was demolished for housing in 2014. The adjacent former church hall of 1981 has been the present St Philip's Church since 2012.