St Mary's Church (Scarborough)
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The St Mary's Church is a church of the Church of England in Scarborough in the county of North Yorkshire in England, which the diocese belongs York. It was built in the 12th century and significantly expanded around 1450. Large parts of the church were destroyed during the English Civil War, so that today only about 50% of the original building remains. The grave of the writer Anne Brontë is in the churchyard . St Mary's Church is listed as Grade I, the stairs and cemetery wall as Grade II building . In addition, the partly still visible ruins and the underground remains of the original building are considered a “ Scheduled Monument ” because of its importance as a large church in an important city of the Middle Ages .
location
St Mary's Church stands on a hill at Castle Road 1 on a headland between North Bay and South Bay Scarboroughs just 300 meters from Scarborough Castle . The historic town center had developed further south around the fishing port, so that extensive area around the church remained undeveloped until 1725 and it was isolated for a long time. A path partly designed as a staircase leads from the harbor up to St Mary's Church.
history
St Mary's Church was first mentioned in 1150. In 1189, King Richard I awarded the income from the church to the Cistercian monastery Citeaux . The connection with Cieteaux lasted more than 200 years until in 1405 Henry IV placed the church under the responsibility of Bridlington Priory .
From the end of the 12th century, the originally single-nave church was considerably expanded by building a north and a south aisle as well as two towers at the west and one at the east. Due to the dispute between King John and the Pope about the successor to Hubert Walter , Archbishop of Canterbury and thus the spiritual head of the Church of England, this construction work dragged on until 1225 (the interdict imposed by the Pope had, among other things, all work on church buildings forbidden). With the addition of two transepts in the 15th century, this eastern tower became the central church tower ( crossing tower ); In 1450, the large north aisle called "St Nicholas" was added and five chapels were added to the south aisle. In the 15th century, the chancel was rebuilt to the extent that the building was extended by 26 meters at its eastern end with a perpendicular style choir.
During the English Civil War in 1645 the parliamentarians besieged the palace, only 300 meters away, in which the royalists sat. They occupied St Mary's Church and posted cannons in the broken east window of the choir. The church was badly damaged by the three days of fighting and the north aisle, the St Nicholas ship , and the choir were destroyed. When the north aisle was rebuilt in 1669, the walls were moved so that the original boundaries of the north transept and the large sanctuary can be seen as ruins outside the church in the cemetery.
In the course of these fighting, all lead glass windows were also destroyed; today's windows are replicas from the 19th and 20th centuries. The tower suffered damage in its upper part and collapsed as a result in 1659. It was later rebuilt and became the east tower because of the destruction of the choir and the north transept.
The church suffered further damage during the Second World War.
During excavations inside the church in 1970, walls, pillars and other remains of the medieval building were found under the floor. The remains of six skeletons were also found.
description
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In the south of the spacious church area there are gardens, so that the building is still largely isolated today. The plateau on which the church stands is surrounded by a cemetery wall (probably 15th century). The stairs and the wall have been a listed building since 1953. In the cemetery there are graves from the 18th and 19th centuries, including the grave of the writer Anne Brontë , who was on a spa stay in Scarborough when she died in 1849. The tombstone stated her age as 28 years old, which was corrected to the correct age (29 years) in 2013. The correction is on a commemorative plaque next to the original tombstone. There have been no new burials in the cemetery since 1858.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Entry of the remains as a Scheduled Monument on historicengland.org.uk
- ↑ Scarborough: St Mary. From: explorechurches.org, accessed February 28, 2020
- ↑ Monument entry of the stairs and cemetery wall at Historic England
- ^ Anne Bronte's grave error corrected. BBC website as of April 30, 2013.
- ↑ St Mary Scarborough on facultyonline.churchofengland.org
Coordinates: 54 ° 17 '11.4 " N , 0 ° 23' 37.2" W.