St Mary's, Staines

St Mary's
File:Geograph-1935052-by-Nigel-Cox.jpg
Country	United Kingdom
Denomination	Anglican
Website	http://www.stainesparish.org.uk/our-churches/st-mary/
Architecture
Architect(s)	John Burges Watson
Style	Neo-Gothic
Administration
Parish	Staines
Diocese	London
Clergy
Vicar(s)	Rev. Michael Burley
Curate(s)	Rev. Peter Jenner, Rev. Sue Wood

St Mary's, Staines, is a church in the town and parish of Staines, in the Spelthorne borough of Surrey and the Greater London Urban Area. Located on a rise not far from the Thames at the west end of the town, the church is part of the Diocese of London within the Church of England. The church was listed as a Grade II* building on 11 August 1952.

History

History of the building

The striking mound the church is on, commanding views over its wide spur of land sandwiched between the discharge of the Colne and the Thames suggests that the first church was built on the site of an older, pre-Christian place of worship. Celtic remains have been found at Church Island 200m south of the church and before the navigability of the Thames, accessible in times of low flow by a ford. Traditionally, the first stone church on this site was said to have been built by St Ermingeld, abbess of Ely, in 685 A.D. The earliest written evidence of a church building is dated 1179, though little is known of the physical appearance of the medieval church.

The oldest surviving part of the church is the tower, supposedly built in 1631 by Inigo Jones, according to a plaque on the tower. A large part of the body of the church collapsed in the 1820s, so a new sanctuary was begun after a Private Act of Parliament was passed allowing what remained of the old church to be blown up. In 1827, the last Saxon remnants of the early St Mary's were destroyed, and the present, crenellated nave was begun the following year; its architect was John Burges Watson. In 1885 an apse with three windows was added to the sanctuary, and the organ was moved to its current location. After the Second World War, the stone pinnacles of the tower were removed as unsafe, possibly due to a bomb falling in the Wraysbury Road during the war.

Fiscal history of the church until the commutation of the tithes

The rectory, consisting after 1217–18 solely of tithes, was appropriated in 1222 to the guest-house and infirmary of Westminster Abbey. In 1225 and until after 1291 it belonged to its "hosteler" alone. Its value, including its chapels of Ashford and Laleham, was £46 13s. 4d. in 1291 (per annum). After the Dissolution the rectory passed into lay hands, and from 1725 to 1844 belonged to the Coussmaker family of Westwood, Surrey. Therefore there is no chancel repair liability on the parish's landowners. In 1842, when the tithes of Staines were commuted, the great tithes of Staines alone (excluding the lesser tithes and the two old, seceded parishes) were worth £365 (per annum).

Items of interest

Stained glass

The Trident Memorial Window commemorates the 1972 Staines air disaster, the worst air disaster in Britain prior to the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. The Bishop of Kensington, Michael Colclough, presided over a service blessing the window at its installation in 2004.

One of the nineteenth-century windows in the apse was donated by the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Prussia (the latter the Princess Royal, Queen Victoria's oldest daughter). The window was given in memory of the governess to the Prussian royal children, Augusta Maria Byng, who once lived in Binbury Row.

Organ

The Brindley & Foster organ, thought to date from the early 1870s, was dismantled for restoration in 1973. After examining the mechanical action, the restorers, Bishop and Sons, determined that the organ dated to before 1830. However, an account in a church magazine from the 1870s indicates that the organ was installed in the church in 1871. It is thus probable that Brindley & Foster took the instrument over from its original builder, enlarged and renovated it. The organ was removed in 1885 from its original location in the gallery at the back of the nave and re-installed on the ground behind the choir‑stalls.

Bells

St Mary’s has a ring of eight bells, five of which date from 1734 and are listed for preservation by the Council for the Care of Churches. The two trebles were added and the tenor recast in 1829.

Following a 1999 survey that revealed cracks in three of the bells, they were removed in 2002 from the tower by Whites of Appleton, who repaired the cracked bells and then sent all to be re-tuned at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. Following re-tuning, the bells were rehung with new wheels, headstocks and other fittings, and reconsecrated by Bishop Edward Holland at a service that same year.

Tombs

Famous people buried at St Mary’s have included:

• François-Henri, duc d'Harcourt, representative of the exiled Louis XVIII to the United Kingdom and member of the Académie Française
• Letitia, Lady Lade, beauty, horsewoman, and mistress of highwayman Jack Rann and the Duke of York
• Augusta Maria Byng, governess to the future Kaiser Wilhelm II and the other children of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Prussia

The chest tomb of George Hawkins (d. 1761) and his wife Elizabeth is a Grade II listed structure.

External links

• St Mary's website