St Mary on the Hill



The church appears to have been commissioned around 1350 to serve the needs of the garrison and staff at Chester Castle, although there may have been an earlier Norman church on the site as there are references to it being granted to the abbey by Ranulph De Gernon, Earl of Chester 1128-53. Chester abbey retained the advowson throughout the Middle Ages. In 1354 it was licensed to appropriate the living, but the move seems to have been opposed by the bishop, and incumbents continued to be styled rector. In 1396 the licence of 1354 was renewed and briefly implemented, the rectory of St. Mary's being united with that of St. Olave's and served by a vicar and perpetual chaplain. The appropriation of the living by the Abbey was quashed in 1402. Before the Reformation St. Mary's possessed notable images of St. Stephen and the Virgin, and an abundance of vestments, ornaments, and sacred vessels. It was also the starting point for the most important event in the annual round of civic ceremonial, the Corpus Christi procession (see Chester Mystery Plays).

The part of the parish inside the walls was very small, but outside there were extensive detached parts, comprising in the south Handbridge and the townships of Claverton and Marlston cum Lache, and in the north Upton by Chester and Little Mollington. Within the walls the parish included the separate township of Gloverstone. In 1599 the parishioners successfully claimed that Moston township and half of Chorlton were in their parish and not Backford. Marlston cum Lache was included within the new parish of Lache cum Saltney in 1855, and Upton became a separate parish in 1882. In 1887 St. Mary's acquired Earl's Eye and lost the intramural areas north of the river, which were assigned to St. Michael's with St. Olave's, and St. Bridget's with St. Martin's. Little Mollington and Moston were transferred to other parishes in the early 20th century. The township of Claverton vanished.

It ceased to be a working church in 1972 is now an education and exhibition venue but apparently formally remains consecrated despite some sources describing it as "decommissioned".

The south east chapel dates from around 1443 and was owned by the Earl of Shrewsbury, while the nave arcades, and clerestory date from around 1500. After the dissolution the church was seized from the dean and chapter by Sir Richard Cotton, who sold it to the Brereton family. Thence the patronage passed through the Wilbrahams and Hills to the Westminster family. It was badly damaged in the Civil War, suffering a major collapse in 1661 and having a rebuild in 1693. During the Jacobite uprising of 1745 the upper portion of the tower was removed, most likely to prevent it being used as a possible sniper position should Chester Castle be attacked. James Harrison remodeled much of the church in 1861-62, and it was further altered by John Pollard Seddon in 1890-92. During this later renovation the north porch was rebuilt in memory of Randle Holme III. The Reverend William Henry Massie (died 1856) was a founder member of the Chester Archaeological Society.

The roof is supposed to have come originally from Basingwerk Abbey, (Flint) after its dissolution in 1535, for in the churchwardens’ accounts under the date 1536, it is noted that:


 * "the quere was boght at basewerk and sette uppe with all costs and charges belongynge to the same."

The roof at St Mary’s Church, Cilcain is said to come from the same source. The Abbey, in its Church and other buildings, would have several roofs or ceilings suitable for removal to other Churches, so that the two statements are not necessarily contradictory. The Chester roof was not specially constructed for its present position, and was evidently once used for a longer building, as is shown by the fact that the principal beams at the east and the west are elaborately carved on the inner surface adjacent the chancel and tower arches. The camber-beam roof is of 40 panels per bay with some 120 bosses, gilt and painted 1970s. The aisles have rebuilt camber-beam roofs.



Seacome (writing in 1828) describes it as follows:


 * "Anciently called Ecclesia Sanctae Maria de Castello and Ecclesia Sanctre Maria super Montem but now St Mary's on the Hill stands at the upper end of Castle street at the extreme verge of the liberties of the city being only separated from the county by the Castle ditch which forms the boundary of the churchyard. Although the precise date of the foundation of this church cannot now be ascertained, yet it is not improbable that it was one of those founded early in the 12th century by Lucy sister of Edwin Earl of Mercia and widow of Randle de Meschines Earl of Chester a lady remarkable as a benefactress to the "holy church" even in that church erecting and endowing age. At all events St Mary's was gifted to the Abbey of St Werburgh by Randle Gernons Earl of Chester son of the above named lady in one of those fits of compunction which usually followed the acts of violence into which his turbulence and ambition frequently led him. Shortly after the dissolution the Dean and Chapter of St Werburgh obtained a grant from the Crown of the Rectory of St Mary's which was surrendered by Dean Cliffs in 1550 to Sir R Cotton in the manner described in a former part of this work, by whose agent it was sold for £100 to John Brereton Esq of Wettenhall, by whose heirs it was again sold to the Wilbrahams of Dorfold, from whom it passed by marriage to the Hills of Hough in Wybunbury, from whom it was purchased by Earl Grosvenor the present patron "

Who was Lucy?
Lucy is indeed remarkable but was not the sister of the Earl of Mercia. Ranulf de Meschines married (c.1090) a very wealthy woman referred to as "Countess Lucy", (c.1079-1138), and she is now believed to have been the granddaughter maternally of William Malet, lord of Graville. Ranulph became the largest landholder in Lindsey through his marriage.

She has been the subject of much historical debate. Legend has it that Malet of Eye's mother was English, and that he was the uncle of King Harold II of England's wife Ealdgyth (the claim being that he had a sister Aelgifu who married Ælfgar, Earl of Mercia, who was the father of Ealdgyth). Legend also claims that William Malet buried Harold after the battle. A charter of Crowland Abbey, now thought to be spurious, described Thorold of Bucknall, perhaps the same as her probable father Thorold of Lincoln, as a brother of Godgifu (better known as Lady Godiva), wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia. Other sources including a genealogia fundatoris of Coventry Abbey, claim Lucy is the daughter of Earl Aelfgar (therefore indeed sister of Aldgyth, Edwin and Morcar and grand-daughter of Godiva) but he died in 1059, some twenty years before "Lucy" was born.



Actual literary confirmation of the identity of "Lucy" is difficult to come by. However:


 * Ingulph's Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland now simply called the Croyland Chronicle records that William I King of England arranged the marriage of "Ivo Taillebois" and "Lucia sister of Edwin and Morcar". The first section of the chronicle is now known to be a later forgery.


 * Peter of Blois' Continuation of the Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland records the death of Ivo and his burial at the priory of Spalding, and the remarriage of his widow "hardly had one month elapsed after his death" with "Roger Fitz-Gerold, Baron of Kendal, the son Gerald de Romar".


 * She is named as wife of Ranulf by Orderic Vitalis, who also names her first husband, but does not give her origin.


 * According to a charter of Henry Duke of Normandy (later Henry II King of England) issued in favour of her son Ranulph De Gernon, Earl of Chester and dated 1153, Countess Lucy was the niece of Robert Malet of Eye and of Alan of Lincoln, as well as kinswoman of Thorold "the Sheriff".

A further William Malet (died c. 1121) was the third of his family to hold the honour of Eye and the lordship of Granville. He was either the younger brother, son, or nephew of Robert Malet, in other words, either a son or grandson of the first William Malet. He forfeited his English lands and was banished sometime between his father's death (c. 1106) and 1113. Several other barons lost their lands in 1110, so that year is likely. The precise cause is not known, but probably it is connected with the conflicts between Henry I and King Louis VI of France during that period or possibly the 1110 revolt of Philip de Braose.

If it were true that Lucy was descended from the Saxon earls of Chester, Ranulphs marriage to Lucy would ensure that his son, Ranulph De Gernon, was descended from Mercian earls. His son's subsequent marriage to a descendent of Henry I would mean that the next generation, Hugh de Kevelioc could claim ancestry from both English and Norman nobility.

There is no real evidence that Lucy founded the church. Lucy, as widowed countess, founded the convent of Stixwould in 1135, becoming, in the words of one historian,


 * "one of the few aristocratic women of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries to achieve the role of independent lay founder" (from Johns, Noblewomen, Aristocracy and Power, p. 60).

Her religious patronage centred on Spalding Priory, a religious house for which her own family was the primary patron. This house (a monastic cell of Crowland) was founded, or re-founded, in 1085 by Lucy and her first husband Ivo Taillebois. Later, she was responsible for many endowments, for instance in the 1120s she and her third husband Earl Ranulf granted the priory the churches of Minting, Belchford and Scamblesby, all in Lincolnshire. In 1135, Lucy, now widowed for the last time, granted the priory her own manor of Spalding for the permanent use of the monks of Spalding. The 1130 pipe roll informs us that Lucy had paid King Henry I 500 marks after Ranulf's death for the right not to have to remarry. The records indicate that Lucy went to great effort to ensure that, after her own death, her sons would honour and uphold her gifts.

Other Descriptions
A later writer notes:




 * '''St. Mary’s church, or St. Mary's-on-the-Hill, as it is more commonly called, stands on an eminence near the Castle; on the consecration of the new church of St. Mary-without-the-Walls, in 1887, the boundaries of the parish were altered, and the old church was included in the parish of St. Bridget with St. Martin, and in 1891, by a faculty decreed in the Consistory Court, it was constituted the parish church of these united parishes: the church is an ancient edifice of red sandstone in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel with north and south chapels, clerestoried nave of three bays, aisles and a tower with pinnacles containing 8 bells, restored and refitted, and augmented by the addition of 2 bells from the church of St. Bridget: the aisles are separated from the nave by low Tudor arches: in the north chapel are two altar tombs, one of which, commemorating Thomas Gamull, recorder of Chester in 1613, and Alice his wife, has recumbent effigies of both, and at the feet of the lady is a kneeling figure of their infant son, afterwards the loyal Sir Francis Gamull kt. (1664); there are also figures of three infant daughters holding skulls in their hands, and on the sides of the tomb are two shields of arms: the other altar tomb, to Philip Oldfield esq. of Bradwall, ob. 1616, bears a half-recumbent effigy in marble, with two daughters kneeling at the head, in the costume of the period; figures of his four sons, each bearing a shield of arms, support the upper slab, and on. the side of the tomb is a painted skeleton in a similar attitude to the effigy above: in the north aisle is a mural monument of considerable interest, ornamented with heraldic devices, to four members of the Holme family, local antiquaries and heralds of repute; the third, Randle, was the author of the heraldic work, “The Academy of Armory,” published 1688; of the numerous other mural monuments and tablets, some have been removed here from the church of St. Bridget: the stained east window in the north chapel was erected in 1860, by public subscription, to the 23rd Regiment (Royal Welsh Fusiliers), especially with reference to its share in the campaign of 1854—5; there are also seven other memorial windows: the church has been restored at different times, and in 1891 a sum of £4,300 was expended, of which one half was given by the Duke of Westminster, and the remainder contributed by public subscription, the work being carried out under the superintendence of Mr. J. P. Seddon, architect, of Westminster, and including the recasing of the north side, a new wood floor, the rebuilding of part of one arcade and the clerestory; the removal of the galleries, the restoration of the Troutbeck or Shrewsbury chapel, at the east end of the south aisle, and the construction of vestries at the west end of the same aisle: the porch was built at the cost of the Freemasons of the Provinces as a memorial to Randle Holme, at a cost of £225; the organ has also been rebuilt at a cost of £300: there are 561 sittings. The registers and plate belonging to the old church were transferred in 1887 to the new church of St. Mary’s-with-out-the-Walls, which became the parish church of the old parish of St. Mary-on-the-Hill. The registers of St. Bridget’s date from the year 1649, and those of St. Martin’s from 1680. The living, styled St. Bridget and St. Martin’s, is a consolidated rectory, average tithe rent-charge £21, net yearly value £216, with 34 acres of glebe, in the gift of the Bishop of Chester, and held since 1886 by the Ven. Edward Barber M.A. of Magdalen College, Oxford, archdeacon and canon residentiary of Chester. The charities of the united parishes amount to about £50 yearly, and in accordance with a new scheme, sanctioned in 1889, are applied to the relief of the deserving poor of both parishes.'''



The fittings, including a font and pulpit from St. Bridget's and reused early 17th-century altar rails, were removed after the church's closure in 1972. The church contains monuments to Philip Oldfield (d. 1616), a reclining effigy enclosed by a railing; and Thomas Gamull (d. 1613) and his wife, a tomb-chest with effigies. Traces of elaborate late medieval wall paintings, uncovered in 1843, survive at the east end of the south aisle. Other monuments include C17 wall monuments to Randle Holme II and family, Randle Holme III and IV; a Gothic Revival tablet by James Harrison to William Currie, d.1834; and a monument to Ralph Worsley, Sergeant of the Crown and Warden of the Lions, Lionesses and Leopards in the Tower of London, d.1573. The inscription of the lionkeeper's memorial can be translated as:


 * "Beneath this spot is buried the body of RALPH WORSLEY, Esquire, who was the third son of William Worsley of Worsley Meyne, in the county of Lancaster, Esquire, and was formerly in the service as Page of the Wardrobe, and one of the Stewards of the Chamber of the most mighty Prince, Henry the Eighth, lately by God's grace, King of England, France and Ireland: to whom the same King on account of the good and faithful service spent about his own Royal person, had out of his Royal bounty given, for the term of his natural life, the offices of Sergeant of the Crown, of Warden of the lions, lionesses and leopards within the Tower of London, of porter of the Great Wardrobe, of Controller in the counties of Chester and Flint, of Clerk of the Crown of Lancaster and of Escheator in the County Palatine of Lancaster, while rewards from other sources were added to these. Pre-eminent mental gifts were bestowed upon him by Heaven, with which he was remarkably endowed, as for example, rare piety towards God, widely-ranging beneficence towards the poor, and wonderful charity towards all men. Having lived more than eighty years, he died on the 27th day of December, in the year of our Lord, 1573,leavmg issue, Alice, wife of Thomas Powell, Esquire (who has defrayed the cost hereof), Katherine, married to Thomas Tuchet, Esquire and Avice, married to Thomas Vawdrey, gentleman, hischildren by his wife Joan, daughter of John Pike, Esquire "By no worldly treasure can heaven he won""

It is almost certain that the tomb in the middle of the Troutbeck chapel was erected to the memory of William Troutbeck, Esq., who died in 1436, and Joan his wife, who built the chapel and endowed the chantry, whilst the other on the south side commemorated his grandson, Sr William Troutbeck, Knt., who died in 1459 at the Battle of Blore Heath, and Dame Margaret (Stanley) his wife (the daughter of Thomas Stanley). Blore Heath was a battle in the English Wars of the Roses that was fought on 23 September 1459, at Blore Heath, Staffordshire. It was supposed to be an ambush with the Lancastrians hiding behind a "great hedge" but plans went astray because they still had their banners up. The Yorkist's eventually won. Margaret's brother Thomas was the Thomas Stanley present at the Battle of Bosworth together with another brother, Sir William. In effect, the two brothers played similar roles to those they had played at the Battle of Blore Heath over a quarter of a century earlier. Lord Stanley took no direct part in the action but stood unmoving between the two armies and it was Sir William's decisive intervention that gave Henry the victory. After the despatch of Richard, who had gone into battle crowned, Polydore Vergil records that the fallen coronet was retrieved and placed by Lord Stanley on his stepson's head before his cheering troops, thereby emphasising the critical role the Stanleys had played in bringing Henry Tudor to the throne. Sir William was later convicted of treason and executed for his support of the pretender Perkin Warbeck.

The children of William and Margaret included Adam Troutbeck (c1455-1511). Margaret Troutbeck was the daughter of Adam Troutbeck and his second wife Joan Molyneux. In 1510 Margaret Troutbeck, now the first wife of Sir John Talbot, was heiress to her uncle (another Sir William Troutbeck), by which she inherited the manors of Brunstath, Elton, Hoole, Oxton, Raby, etc., in Cheshire.

The church is the subject of a detailed history by J. P. Earwaker. Earwaker's book was published postumously in 1898 and edited by Rupert Morris, who included many of Earwaker's jottings as footnotes in putting togther the final text. Consequently, this book may well contain some errors. The ditch next to the graveyard of St Mary's was used to bury execution victims (see Execution at Chester). Some however appear to have been buried in the graveyard itself. The following entries appear in the parish records :


 * 1631 - 'Thomas Laceby, a prisoner, pressed to death, buried in the churchyard on the north side of the steeple on the 23rd day of April. John Johnson, Joan Broome and Katherine Crosse, three persons that were executed, buried at the west end of the steeple in the churchyard the 25th day of April'.


 * 1656 - 'Three witches hanged at Michaelmas Assizes, buried in the corner by the Castle Ditch in the churchyard 8th of October'.

The three witches buried in 1656 (see: Witch Trials) were Ellen Beach, Anne Osboston and Anne Thornton. The same three witches also feature in guidebooks as:


 * "In the 17th century three ladies, Thornton, Beech and Osbertson, were found guilty of being witches by the Witchfinder General and burned in the Castle Ditch. They haunt St Mary's Churchyard during Halloween"

In reality Thornton, Beach and Osboston had nothing to do with the Witchfinder General and were not burned in the Castle ditch. Whether they haunt the churchyard is an open question, although the Judge who sentenced them to death (John Bradshaw) also died on Halloween so they may have some reason to celebrate.

St Mary’s “on the hill” is not only a beautiful building on the outside, its equally stunning and impressively spacious interior also offers an extraordinarily atmospheric creative environment, whether for large dynamic musical groups, or the smaller ensembles who enjoy the focus of its quieter corners. The marvellous acoustic is well-suited to musical and theatrical performances. There is a bar for most performances selling a limited range of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks before the show and in the interval. Tea and coffee are often available.

Information on the stained glass and the bells can be found in the links below.

Related pages

 * St Mary's Hill: the gradient is over 36 degrees, making it the steepest residential street in England and very close to a world record.
 * Brerewood;
 * Randle Holme;
 * Earwaker;
 * Gloverstone;
 * Clockmaker;
 * Stanley Palace;

Online

 * St Mary on the Hill, on Wikipedia;
 * British History Online;
 * Historic England;
 * Stained glass;
 * Memorials;
 * Bells;
 * A history of the church (free e-book) (a less readable version with notes and inserts);
 * Katherine S. B. Keats-Rohan, "Antecessor Noster: The Parentage of Countess Lucy Made Plain", Prosopon, issue 2;
 * Enclosure of parish land
 * Thomas Gamull;