St Mary's Church, Melton Mowbray

St Mary's Church, Melton Mowbray
St Mary's Church, Melton Mowbray
Denomination	Church of England
Churchmanship	Broad Church
Website	www.melton.leicester.anglican.org
History
Dedication	St Mary
Administration
Parish	Melton Mowbray
Diocese	Leicester
Province	Canterbury
Clergy
Rector	Revd Kevin Ashby
Vicar(s)	Revd Sharon Constable
Laity
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.

Contents 1 Features 2 Bells and carillon 3 List of Rectors 4 Organ 4.1 List of organists 5 References

Features

St Mary's Church is the largest and "stateliest" parish church in Leicestershire, ^[1] 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. The church has a large choir containing around 40 members. The full choir is led by Michael Geeson,11 (2011).

The church 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

^[2]

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[3] later organist of Wakefield Cathedral

William Dean Pearson 1930 - 1937[4] - 1940 Lt. Col. Skentelbury 1941 Cecil Clarke 1942 - 1946 Harold L. Barnes 1946 - 1966 John A. Bellamy 1966 - 1968 Eric Bennett 1968 - 1973 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

• Thompson, Charles Henry (1950). The Story of St Mary's Church Melton Mowbray. Gloucester : British Publishing Co.