St Bartholomew's Church, Tong facts for kids
Quick facts for kids St Bartholomew's Church, Tong |
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| St Bartholomew's Church, Tong | |
| Collegiate Church of St Bartholomew, Tong "The Westminster Abbey of The Midlands" |
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St Bartholomew's church seen from the south
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| Location | Shropshire |
| Country | England |
| Denomination | Church of England |
| Website | St Bartholomew's, Tong, Shropshire |
| History | |
| Status | parish church |
| Founder(s) | Isabel Lingen |
| Dedication | St Bartholomew |
| Architecture | |
| Functional status | Active |
| Heritage designation | Grade I Listed |
| Designated | 26 May 1955 |
| Architect(s) | Ewan Christian (restoration) |
| Style | Gothic |
| Years built | 1409–1430 |
| Specifications | |
| Length | 103 feet 10 inches (31.65 m) |
| Nave width | 45 feet 11 inches (14.00 m) |
| Height | 25 feet 9 inches (7.85 m) |
| Materials | New Red Sandstone, Sherwood Sandstone Group |
| Bells | ring of 6, plus service and bourdon bells |
| Administration | |
| Parish | Tong |
| Deanery | Edgmond and Shifnal |
| Archdeaconry | Salop |
| Diocese | Lichfield |
| Province | Canterbury |
The Collegiate Church of St Bartholomew, Tong (also known as St Bartholomew's Church) is a 15th-century church in the village of Tong, Shropshire, England, notable for its architecture and fittings, including its fan vaulting in a side chapel, rare in Shropshire, and its numerous tombs. It was built on the site of a former parish church and was constructed as a collegiate church and chantry on the initiative of Isabel Lingen, who acquired the advowson from Shrewsbury Abbey and additional endowments through royal support. Patronage remained with the lords of the manor of Tong, who resided at nearby Tong Castle, a short distance to the south-west, and the tombs and memorials mostly represent these families, particularly the Vernons of Haddon Hall, who held the lordship for more than a century. Later patrons, mostly of landed gentry origin, added further memorials, including the Stanley Monument which is inscribed with epitaphs specially written by William Shakespeare.
The church was the site of a minor skirmish during the English Civil War and also hosts the grave of Little Nell from Charles Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop, despite the character being entirely fictitious. The building is grade I listed and had its lead roof replenished with steel during 2017 to deter thieves. Due to its many monuments inside the church and ornate architecture, it is sometimes labelled as The Westminster Abbey of The Midlands, often featuring as one of the best churches in The Midlands and in England.
Contents
Earlier churches at Tong
No church at Tong is mentioned in Domesday Book. At that point Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, held the manor both as tenant-in-chief and as manorial lord. The cartulary of Shrewsbury Abbey shows that Earl Roger granted it the advowson of the church at Tong and a pension of half a mark from its income, so the church must have been built between Domesday in 1087 and his death in 1094. After Robert of Bellême, 3rd Earl of Shrewsbury forfeited his family’s lands through revolt, Tong and nearby Donington were granted by Henry I to Richard de Belmeis I, his viceroy in Shropshire and the Welsh Marches, who also became Bishop of London, and who held the churches on both estates from Shrewsbury Abbey until his death in 1127. He ensured the two churches were restored to Shrewsbury Abbey on his death but his secular holdings went to his nephew Philip de Belmeis, one of the founders of Lilleshall Abbey.
After about four decades the male line of Belmeis at Tong became extinct and Alan la Zouche acquired the manor through marriage to Alicia de Belmeis. The Zouche familie maintained the Belmeis link with the Augustinian abbey at Lilleshall, where they sometimes claimed advowson, rather than Benedictine Shrewsbury.
The implicit tension between secular and ecclesiastical authority came into the open under Alan’s grandson, William la Zouche. William drove out Ernulf, a parish priest who had been duly presented by Shrewsbury Abbey and installed by Hugh Nonant, the Bishop of Coventry, some time between 1188 and 1194. The row appears to have blown over and Ernulf died in 1220 in full possession of Tong church. However, Ernulf’s death brought to the surface a further issue. The Abbey had already sold the pension from the church and the reversion of the parsonage to Robert de Shireford. Roger la Zouche, William’s brother and heir, was outraged and initiated an assize of darrein presentment against the abbot at Westminster in November 1220, aiming to prove his own right to nominate Ernulf’s successor. Although the procedure was intended to simplify disputes over advowson or patronage, the legal wrangle took over a year to settle. The key issue, raised at the outset of all such cases, was who had presented the previous priest. There was no evidence that Ernulf had ever been presented by the lord of the manor and Roger had no answer to the abbot’s systematic documentation of Shrewsbury Abbey’s grants: the case inevitably ended in victory for the abbey.
A new church building seems to have been erected in 1260. By this time the male line of the la Zouche family at Tong had petered out and the manor was being passed through the descendants of Roger’s daughter, Alice. Her daughter Orabil married Henry de Penbrigg and in 1271 the couple were granted a charter by Henry III at Winchester, allowing them to hold a weekly market at Tong on Thursdays, as well as an annual fair stretching from the eve to the morrow of St Bartholomew the Apostle (23–25 August). Henry’s father, also Henry, had recently died, after losing the family’s patrimony of Pembridge in Herefordshire as a result of his participation in the Second Barons' War. Hence, his main manor was now Tong and his successors were generally described as Pembrugge or Pembridge of Tong Castle. The last of these was Sir Fulk Pembridge, a very substantial landowner who was a member of the Parliament of England for Shropshire just once, in 1397. The History of Parliament avers that "Pembridge’s status as a wealthy landowner is not reflected in his public service." He died in 1409 sine prole (without issue), despite two marriages. Sir Fulk had greatly expanded his lands and wealth through his first marriage to Margaret Trussell, only 14 years old when her father died in 1363 but already a widow. Margaret died in 1399. Sir Fulk’s second wife, Isabel Lingen, who had been married twice before, was to survive him by 37 years. She was from the Herefordshire landed gentry, the daughter of Sir Ralph Lingen, of Wigmore, according to the History of Parliament. The inquisition for the feudal aid levied by Edward III in 1346 found a Radulphus de Lingayn holding the manors of Aymestrey and Lower Lye, close to both Lingen and Wigmore in Herefordshire: both estates belonged to the honour of Radnor and were within the large tracts of the Welsh Marches dominated by the Mortimer family of Wigmore Castle. Isabel had Tong and a large portfolio of Trussell estates settled on her for life, which was to lead to prolonged and bitter conflict between the Trussell family and Sir Fulk’s heir, Richard Vernon of Haddon Hall.
Foundation of the college
The present church was founded by the widowed Isabel Lingen as a chantry and collegiate church. In order to secure the new foundation, Isabel took the precaution of acquiring the advowson of the church from Shrewsbury Abbey and securing a financial basis for the foundation. This was an expensive process, with the royal licence alone, granted by Henry IV at Leicester on 25 November 1410, costing £40 (equivalent to £12,422 in 2021). Even after parting with the right to nominate the priests, the Abbey retained its token annual pension of 6s. 8d. or half a mark. Isabel applied for the licence jointly with two clerics, Walter Swan and William Mosse, who were both feoffees for Sir Fulk Pembridge. The three together donated in frankalmoin a messuage, or property with dwelling, in Tong itself, together with the advowson of St Batholomew’s. Mosse gave the advowson of St Mary’s Church at Orlingbury in Northamptonshire. Mosse and Swan together donated lands at Sharnford in Leicestershire: two messuages, two virgates of land and four acres of meadow. In addition the two priests gave the reversion of the manor of Gilmorton, also in Leicestershire, which was at the time occupied by Sir William Newport and his wife Margaret: it seems that Newport himself was dead by 1417.
The new foundation was intended from the outset to be housed in a new and permanent building, as the king recognised that Isabel, Walter and William "proposed to erect, make and found the Church of Tong, mentioned above, into a certain permanent college" (prædictam ecclesiam de Tonge ... erigere, facere et fundare proponant in quoddam collegium perpetuo duraturum). The number of priests who would constitute the college was left helpfully vague: "five chaplains, more or less, of whom one is to be appointed by this Isabel, Walter and Wiliam, their heirs or assignees as warden of the same college" (quinque capellanis seu pluribus paucioribus quorum unus per ipsos Isabellam Walterum et Willielmum hæredes vel assignatos suos deputandus sit custos eiusdem collegii.) The name was specified as "the College of St Bartholomew the Apostle of Tong."
The principal purpose of Isabel’s foundation was to intercede by regular masses for the souls of her three husbands: in reverse chronological order, Sir Fulke de Pembrugge or Pembridge, who had died only a year earlier, Sir Thomas Peytevin and Sir John Ludlow who all predeceased her. However, the list of beneficiaries is not so simple. The king had himself placed first, followed by his half-brother, Thomas Beaufort, who was at that time his Chancellor. Sir Fulk and his first wife, Margaret Trussell followed, and then Isabel’s former husbands, her parents and ancestors, and finally "all the faithful departed"
The king’s licence gave permission for Isabel, Walter Swan and William Mosse to grant the advowson of the college, once it was securely founded, to Richard Vernon – called in this instance Richard de Penbrugge, presumably to emphasise his kinship to Sir Fulk. In fact he was the grandson of Sir Fulk’s sister, Juliana. Named alongside him was Benedicta de Ludlow, his wife, who was the daughter of Isabel of Lingen. The advowson was to pass to their heirs or, if the Vernon line failed, to a branch of the Ludlow family. However, the Vernons were to hold the advowson, along with Tong manor and castle until well into the next century. They were in this period the wealthiest of the Derbyshire gentry families, closer in income and lifestyle to the nobility than to the rest of the gentry. By the end of the century their estates across eight counties were bringing in well over £600 per year.
In addition to the college of priests, the income of the foundation was for the support of thirteen disabled poor men (tresdecem pauperum debilium). At the same time, Dame Isabel had almshouses built at the western end of the church that would house 13 people. The almshouses (also known variously as the hospital) were abandoned and rebuilt off-site in Tong village in the late 18th century. The derelict almshouses were destroyed in the 19th century by the then owner of the Tong estate, Mr George Durant. Only one of the outside walls is left standing today which is grade II listed.
Vernon's chantry
Although there were bequests to procure masses, the only permanent chantry established at Tong after the foundation was that of Sir Henry Vernon. He made his will on 18 January 1515 and it was proved by his executors on 5 May that year. They were his sons, Richard and Arthur, a priest, as well as Thomas Rawson, a chaplain of the college.
Sir Henry Vernon instructed that he be buried in a previously designated place at Tong and that the remains of his wife, Anne Talbot, daughter of John Talbot, 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury, be disinterred and buried next to him. The tomb and associated chapel were to be completed within two years of his death and were to be commensurate with his wife’s noble origins. He requested the usual trentals of masses but also left 300 marks or £200 to invest for the support of a chantry priest to serve in the chapel. He also left a small estate at Rushall to fund his masses within the church. The men and women of the almshouse were to receive 12d. each to pray for his soul at his funeral and 1d. on his anniversaries. To equip the chantry chapel he left to it his best mass book and a chalice of traditional design.
Sir Henry Vernon directed that his chantry priest should be responsible for all the services in the chapel he had founded but also that he should help at high mass in the choir of the church. Like the priest, the chantry was never fully absorbed into Tong College and its finances were separate. It was named "the Chapel of the Salutation of Our Lady" and at the dissolution received a separate certificate. Its assets were also listed separately from those of the college when sold by the Crown in 1547. They included lands in West Bromwich, Dudley, Tipton and Sedgley in Staffordshire, as well as some close to Tong, and were worth £6 9s. 2d. annually – close to the income of 10 marks envisaged by Vernon.
Dissolution
Seizure of the property
The commission to dissolve Tong College, issued on 17 September 1546, referred to legislation of the previous year that permitted the king’s commissioners to seize on his behalf the property of "chantries, hospitals, colleges, free chapels, fraternities or guilds." It was stamped by William Clerk, a clerk to the Privy Seal under Henry VIII, in the presence of Sir Anthony Denny and Sir John Gates. The commission was addressed to four of the Midlands upper landed gentry, all men with either powerful connections or great wealth, or both: Sir George Blount of Kinlet, brother of the king’s former mistress, Elizabeth Blount, a religious conservative but a distinguished soldier who was close to the powerful and Protestant John Dudley, Viscount Lisle; George Vernon, lord of Haddon, apparently not much in favour at Court, whose father Richard had died in 1517, only two years after acting as executor for Sir Henry Vernon; Thomas Giffard, son of Sir John Giffard of Chillington, a former courtier who had played a major part in preparing Henry VIII’s reception of Anne of Cleves, and a Catholic who had, nevertheless, acquired Black Ladies Priory after its dissolution through the favour of Thomas Cromwell; and Francis Cave of Baggrave, a property he had acquired on the dissolution of Leicester Abbey, a noted City lawyer and a Protestant. Tong College was one of only a few colleges selected for dissolution under the 1545 act. For the purposes of the seizure, it was grouped together with Vernon's Chantry, housed in the chapel on the south side of the church but institutionally separate, and the "Chantry of the Blessed Mary," a similar Vernon foundation in All Saints' Church, Bakewell.
Three of the commissioners, Vernon, Giffard and Cave, entered and seized Tong College on 27 September and went on to take over a close or small pasture belonging to Vernon's Chantry, as a symbolic seizure of the entire property. Two days later they took over Katherine Wynterbotham's home in Bakewell to represent the seizure of all the chantry property there. Once these token seizures had taken place, proper inventories were drawn up, supervised by Blount, Giffard and Cave. It seems that the sale of the properties to Sir Richard Manners, George Vernon's stepfather, was a foregone conclusion. To make sure he was aware of important outgoings, the inventory began with a detailed list of foods required by the almshouses at Tong, including coarse grain for bread, malt for brewing, fat cattle and pigs, and Lenten items, like pulses and herring. Eggs were specified for the period between Easter and Whitsuntide. Manners was also reminded of the need to provide firewood and to employ a servant girl for the almshouses. The arrears of pay owed to servants from Lady Day to Michaelmas were also listed, along with small loans and wages for casual labourers. The goods of the college and almshouses were appraised by and recorded by a team of surveyors: William Skeffington, a Wolverhampton businessman; Nicholas Agard of Foston, Derbyshire; and Robert Forster, a Tong College tenant. The list included quantities of vestments and textiles, beds and bedding. The cooking equipment was listed, with both the college and the almshouses owning substantial brewing vessels, including brass pans and wort leads. By far the most important assets were the livestock, valued at more than £10 in total, including two oxen, two cattle, and 36 sheep. By contrast, Vernon's Chantry had nothing but vestments, valued at just 11 shillings, although a chalice worth more than £3 made the Bakewell chantry much more valuable. The shared equipment of the almshouses consisted only of old pots and pans.
Disposal of estates
William Clerk stamped the letters patent granting the Tong and Bakewell estates to Richard Manners in January 1547. The annual value of Tong College was given as £53 13s. 5¼d., Vernon's Chantry at £6 9s. 2d. and Bakewell at £7 5s. 1d. Manners had agreed to pay £486 4s. 2d. for the three properties. However, Henry VIII was dying and the sale went no further until 25 July 1547, when Edward VI was king and his regency council, acting as his father’s executors, were in control. It was accepted that Manners had paid the agreed sum at the Court of Augmentations on 12 May to the satisfaction of Henry VIII, who had actually died more than 3 months earlier. The grant specified the lands that were to be transferred to Manners and that he would hold them as one fortieth of a knight's fee, which was translated into a cash rent of £5 4s. 0½d. for the college, 12s. 11d. for Vernon's Chantry and 14s. 6½d. for the Bakewell chantry, to be paid at Augmentations each Michaelmas.
Manners was quick to profit by selling off some of the property. Less than a month later, 15 August 1547, he obtained for 60s. a licence to sell the Tong College building and site, the rectory or tithes of the church and the advowson, Vernon's Chantry and its meadow, together with other small properties to James and Alice Wolryche or Woolrich. On 30 May 1548 he paid £7 18s. 9d. for a licence to sell a Lapley manor and large number of properties previously belonging to the priory to Robert Broke, an eminent lawyer in the service of the City of London but from Claverley in Shropshire. It is clear that Robert Forster, who had helped in the surveying of the college, acquired the lands which he had been leasing from Manners in Wellington and Horsebrook (in Brewood), as well as several estates belonging to Vernon's Chantry, as in 1557 he bought a licence to grant them to his son.
College after dissolution
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The college buildings, constructed in the 15th century, remained with the Woolrich family until after the death of James Woolrich in 1648, when they were sold by his heirs to William Pierrepont, who had acquired the lordship of Tong through marriage. As the advowson, patronage and tithes of the church had all belonged to the college, when William Pierrepont died in 1678 he was able to leave to his youngest son, Gervase "the College, Rectory, Glebe lands and Tithes in the parish of Tong, in the County of Salop." In 1697 Gervase assigned an annuity of £12 to provide for the six widows occupying the almshouses near the west end of the church.
A map of 1739 shows that the college buildings still covered a large area just south of the churchyard. It seems that a rapid deterioration occurred around mid-century. As late as 1757, William Cole, a noted antiquary, observed that the college buildings, now thatched, were still in good repair, forming a complete square, and the almshouses too were in good order: features that led him to comment that "the inhabitants of Tong have more to boast of than most country places." However, in 1763 a description in The Gentleman's Magazine contains the information that "The ancient college where the clergy lived is mostly demolished, and what remains is partly inhabited by some poor people, and partly converted into a stable." The almshouses still stood and those to the west of the church held "six poor widows, who have 40s. a shift and gown, per annum." Early in the 19th century, the owner of the Tong estate, George Durant, had the remaining college structures demolished, leaving just a short section of wall to mark the position of the original almshouses.
Church and castle
After the dissolution of the college, the church continued as the focal point of the small village of Tong, as it always had. For about a century, the advowson of the church belonged to the Wolryche family and it seems that they took the opportunity to install at least one family member: a John Wolryche is recorded as curate in 1561. For more than four decades of the Wolryche period the curacy was held by George Meeson, who appears in diocesan records as early as 1597. Meeson was buried at Tong on 25 March 1642, although his successor, William Southall, had been completing the parish register under the title of rector for a year by then.
Sir Thomas Harries, whose family were lords of Cruckton, had bought the manor from Sir Edward Stanley. He died at Tong on 18 February 1628. William Pierrepont’s marriage to Elizabeth Harries, the heiress of Thomas, now gave him the manor. Several Pierrepont children were baptised at Tong: Francis (a daughter) in 1630, Ellinor in 1631, Margaret in 1632, Robert in 1634, Henry in 1637 A son, William, was buried there in 1640. So Pierrepont was committed to Tong, although he was a wealthy and powerful landowner in Nottinghamshire as well as a Lincoln’s Inn lawyer and had several other homes. As MP for the Shropshire constituency of Much Wenlock at the outbreak of the English Civil War, Pierrepont was one of the emissaries sent by Parliament to attempt to rally the county against Charles I. However, the attempt failed in the face of a coup carried out by Francis Ottley and the Parliamentarian gentry and clergy were forced to flee the county when the king led his main field army from Nottingham to Shrewsbury. The Shropshire Parliamentary committee did not secure a foothold in the county until autumn of 1643, when it became established at Wem, with support from the Cheshire Parliamentarians, and was not able to retake Shrewsbury itself until February 1645. However, Tong Castle changed hand several times, as it lay close to major routes. It was taken by Parliamentarians from Eccleshall in Staffordshire on 28 December 1643 but was fought over through the following years. William Southall, the incumbent, seems to have remained in post at Tong church until some time in the summer of 1643 but then disappears from view. Richard Symonds, a royalist soldier and diarist recorded in a list of Shropshire garrisons:
Tong Castle. First the King had it; then the rebells gott it; then Prince Rupert tooke it and putt in a garrison, who afterward burnt it when he drew them out to the battaile of York.
Symonds actually witnessed the damage at Tong on 17 May 1645, on the campaign that culminated in the decisive defeat of the royalists at the Battle of Naseby, noting that the church had suffered a large amount of broken glass.
While his home was ransacked, besieged and burnt, William Pierrepont was a lay member of the Westminster Assembly and seems to have been Presbyterian in his sympathies, although he was a friend of Oliver Cromwell and on good terms with the Independents. Parliament’s dominance in the Midlands evidently allowed him to become active again in Shropshire and to use Tong Castle. In the 1646 proposed Presbyterian reorganisation of Shropshire Tong was assigned to the third classis, centred on Bridgnorth, and Pierrepont headed the list of lay presbyters. However, the new polity was only patchily established and only the fourth classis, based on Wem and Whitchurch, is known to have functioned fully. During this period considerable sums were assigned to the repair of Tong church. Pierrepont’s purchase of the college property from the Wolryche family in 1648 reunited the advowson of the church with the manorial lordship. The parish register shows that baptisms, marriages and burials had continued as normal in the absence of an incumbent, although the officiant is not named. In 1650 Robert Hilton was appointed to be minister of the church.
An entry for 4 March 1660, just before the Restoration, shows that Hilton baptised Elizabeth Nichols in the font, although it is not clear whether this represented a change in practice at that point: Auden contrasts it with the practice at Wem, where baptisms took place in a water basin by the pulpit, in accordance with the Directory for Public Worship. After the Restoration, Pierrepont continued to work for the Presbyterian cause in the Convention Parliament (1660) but also spoke against forcing Catholic recusants to take the Oath of Supremacy. He was criticised for his tolerance and flexibility from all sides. The parliament decreed that living ministers who had been ejected from their cures during the Commonwealth of England might return. Hilton retired in December 1660, although he was not compelled to do so, as Southall was dead. His successor, Joseph Bradley, who had no university degree and was presumably ordained by a Presbyterian classis, underwent episcopal ordination successively as a deacon and priest during 1662, avoiding the Great Ejection.
Gervase Pierrepont, William’s son and heir, was an assiduous supporter of the established church and took steps to provide well for his own curate. By a deed dated 23 October 1697 he ensured that the curate should receive all the lesser tithes: hay, wool, lamb, hemp, flax, apples, pears, etc. Only the tithes of corn and grain were excepted. He also granted an annuity to ensure that the curate’s income should not fall below £30 per annum. He assigned a further annuity of £14 to feed the minister and a third to provide £6 for a horse, although these were not to be paid if the minister or his horse were provisioned at the castle. A room and stabling, as well as free summer grazing, were expressly made available for this purpose. There was no vicarage building until 1725, so the perpetual curate sometimes lived in the castle and served as a private chaplain to the manorial lord and his family when they were in residence, although most had several other houses. Gervase was politically very different from his father. Tory and anti-war, he was unable to secure a parliamentary seat in what he regarded as his home county of Shropshire. He was forced to rely on the influence of his nephew, Thomas Tufton, 6th Earl of Thanet, and on large scale bribery to take a seat at Appleby in the House of Commons of England from 1698 to 1705. In 1703 he became Baron Pierrepont of Ardglass, an Irish title that did not conflict with participation in the English Commons: in 1714, a few months before his death, he finally acquired the English barony of Pierrepont of Hanslape, commencing a brief period in which Tong was held by peers of the realm. His generosity to the clergy was emulated by his successors and the 1763 description noted that "Tong is now a perpetual curacy and the Duke of Kingston allows the minister 80l. (equivalent to £9,881 in 2021) per annum." The church continued to serve as a place of worship for the families who occupied Tong Castle, as they were its patrons and it was in the castle's demesne.
Tong Castle was demolished in 1954 by the Army after it had fallen into disrepair. Before the building of the A41 bypass in 1963, the distance from Tong Castle to the church was 1,640 feet (500 m) alongside the body of water known as Church Pool as the traditional road ran around the church and through the village.
The land that the church is built on is not level and slopes downhill from east to west. Jeffery suggests that it could be the bedrock underneath, but it was also thought that this was a deliberate and practical act to allow the floor to be washed as water poured in from the east would flow straight out of the west door.
The church's north door served as the "Door of Excommunication", though it is not clear when this was last used or when it was sealed. A stoneworked version of the Royal Arms of George III, is located above the north door which is made of Coade stone. The monument cost £60 in 1814 and was a present from George Jellicoe to celebrate the Peace of Paris and Napoleon's exile to Elba. The whole church was restored late in the 19th century under the direction of Ewan Christian that was completed in 1892.
The church owns a ciborium known as The Tong Cup. Nikolaus Pevsner dates the cup to between 1540 and 1550, which Robert Jeffery says is far too early and recent research suggests it was made almost a century later. The cup is 11 inches (280 mm) tall and is described in the parish records as being "a communion cup of goulde and christall" though it is silver gilt and does have a central barrel made of crystal. After JE Auden tried to sell the cup to raise money, and at least one nobleman borrowing it for 30 years, the cup has been removed to the treasury of Lichfield Cathedral, but it remains the property of the parish.
Like many churches, St Bartholomew's has been targeted by lead thieves who have stripped the roof and the church was targeted six times between 2010 and 2015. In 2017, after a private and public funding was supplied, terne-coated stainless steel has been used to deter the metal thieves.
The church is often cited as one worthy of a visit due to its heritage and history. R. W. Eyton, who spent some of his youth in Tong, wrote in 1855 that "if there be any place in Shropshire calculated to impress the moralist, instruct the antiquary and interest the historian, that place is Tong. It was for centuries the abode or heritage of men, great either for their wisdom or their virtues, eminent either from their station or their misfortunes." Simon Jenkins profiled the church in his book, England's Thousand Best Churches, where Tong church is one of three in Shropshire that he awarded three stars, surpassed only by St Laurence's Church, Ludlow. St Bartholomew's is also frequently labelled as "The Westminster Abbey of the West Midlands", a title it has acquired because of its history and decorations (though Helen Moorwood notes that this title could be applied to a number of churches in the region). The first person recorded to have described St Bartholomew's as a "little Westminster" was Elihu Burritt, an American consul based in Birmingham, who was in awe of its "beautiful and costly monuments".
Bells
The crossing tower has a ring of six bells. Robert I Newcombe of Leicester cast the third bell in 1593. Henry II Oldfield of Nottingham cast the fourth bell in 1605. William Clibury of Wellington, Shropshire cast the fifth bell in 1623 and the second bell in 1636. Abrahal II Rudhall of Gloucester cast the treble bell in 1719. Thomas II Mears of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, who had also a foundry at Gloucester, recast the tenor bell in 1810.
The church has also a service or Sanctus bell that was cast by a member of the Newcombe family about 1600.
St Bartholomew's is noted for its bourdon bell, which weighs 2 long tons 6 cwt 1 qr (5,180 lb or 2.35 t) and was re-cast in the same year that Christian's restoration of the church was completed. The bourdon is called the Great Bell of Tong, and 1892 is the second time that it has been re-cast. The money for a bell was bequeathed by Sir Henry Vernon in 1518. It was cracked in the Civil War and not re-cast until 1720. It was cracked again in 1848 during an Ascension Day service and not re-cast until 1892. and is claimed to be the loudest and biggest bell in Shropshire, and as such, on its third recasting, it was feared that the supporting tower structure would not support continued tolling. The bell is now rung only on certain days and on certain occasions which gives the vicar of the church an equal status with the local noble families and the sitting monarch of the United Kingdom.
Exterior and grounds
The church is built of New Red Sandstone, which is abundant locally. Pevsner describes it as "local sandstone ashlar of a sombre brown hue which has worn wonderfully well". The church can be seen from the A41 and is described as being so beautiful as it makes the traveller wish to stop and explore further. Its low pitched roof is decorated with battlements, pinnacles and gargoyles.
The north side of the church has many musket ball holes and at least one cannon-shot hole in its outer walls. These were made during the English Civil War when minor skirmishes between the two warring factions were trying to wrest control of Tong Castle from each other. Because the church was on the road between Newport and Wolverhampton, it regularly featured in the fighting. After the fighting, one of the soldiers, identified as Richard Symonds, described Tong church as "[a] faire church [but] the windows much broken".
The musket ball holes have also been alluded to possibly be from when enemy soldiers were executed (usually on the north wall of a church). This has been discounted with the church at Tong as it was felt that the extreme dip between the road and the church wall would make it impractical. One of the smaller bells was taken from the church to be melted down for use in artillery and lead from the church roof was also stripped to provide ammunition for firearms.
A carved statue of St Bartholomew is situated on the east wall and sits in a niche. The statue was made by Pat Austin, the wife of the rose breeder, David Austin, whose rose growing business is located in nearby Albrighton. 16 feet (5 m) south of the South Chapel in the church is the base of a 15th-century cross. The base is made of sandstone and used to have a headcross upon it, but this has since been lost and replaced in 1776 with a sundial. The base is grade II* listed.
For some time, at least until the 18th century, school buildings were located in the churchyard.The licence for the college was granted by Henry IV in 1410 and the college buildings were located on the south side of the church. The buildings were largely destroyed in 1644 during the English Civil War when Colonel Tiller drove the Parliamentarians from Tong Castle, church and college. Subsequent archaeological investigations determined that the buildings had been burnt around that time period. The college buildings survived until the middle of the 18th century when they were taken apart. George Durant destroyed the rest in the 19th century and their site is directly under the A41 bypass.
Between the north side of the nave and the vestry there is a gap which has a small Maltese Cross sunk into the ground. This area is known as "Chrysom's Graveyard" and was where unbaptised babies were buried. The cross has lines from Lord Byron, Walter Scott and Sir Thomas More cut into it (though they are mostly worn away now by weathering), and, like many other parts of the church area, is a Grade II listed structure.
Little Nell's grave
The churchyard has a grave in it that has a little metal plate attached to it which reads "The reputed grave of Little Nell". This stems from the character of Little Nell in Charles Dickens' novel, The Old Curiosity Shop. In the novel, both Little Nell and her grandfather are made destitute, and move to an unidentified West Midlands village to become beggars. At the end of the book, Nell dies and her grandfather sits by her grave waiting for her return (he is afflicted with a mental illness and so refuses to admit that she is, in fact, dead).
Around 1910, the verger at the time, George Bowden, created a false entry in the parish register to state that a Nell Gwyn was buried in the churchyard. The giveaway was that he used Post Office ink rather than the normal ink used in the register. He also created a grave which has moved around in the last 100 years as real people were interred in the church grounds. Despite being a fake and also that Nell is a fictitious character, the grave has attracted many visitors including some from as far afield as America.
Tong has been identified as the setting for Nell's death because Dickens' grandmother was the housekeeper at Tong Castle and whilst he was staying at nearby Albrighton to visit her, he is said to have penned the closing lines in the novel. Dickens himself confirmed this to the clergy in the church of Tong after publication of The Old Curiosity Shop, with Dickens also describing the church as "..a very aged, ghostly place".
Interior
The interior of the church has been described as being a "splendid Perpendicular Gothic interior [that] attracts thousands of heritage visitors each year". The history, monuments and relics inside of and including the church itself, are a Grade I listed building. The four supporting pillars that are aligned along the south side of the nave are from the original church and have been dated to the late 13th century. The main body of the church is early 15th century and the only major addition after that, is the Vernon Chantry (or Golden Chapel) which was added in the early 16th century. Unlike contemporary churches, St Bartholomew's does not have a clerestory.
The tower is noted for its rectangular base that supports an octagonal structure, which in turn, is topped off with a short spire. The base of the tower has the belfry and access to it and the rood loft is found through a door in the north east pillar from which the pulpit used to hang. The pulpit itself is a Jacobean style 17th century gift, and now stands just west of the pillar. The pulpit is hexagonal, dated to 1622 and inscribed with Ex dono Dne Harries Ano Dni 1622 (the gift of Lady Harries).
The choir is lined with stalls that are adorned with misericords dated to about 1480. One particular example, where the warden of the church would have sat, includes an example of a Lily crucifix carved into it, of which there are only a dozen examples left in England, with St Bartholomew's misericord being the only one in England displayed in wood. Given that the rest of the misericords do not denote any other biblical subjects, it has been suggested that the carver was unaware of the symbolism and that its carving was just down to chance. The panelling is 19th century and from Oberammergau.
The east window was designed and installed by Charles Kempe at the same time as the church's restoration. The east window is noted for its detail and is five windows (or lights) divided by a transom. Kempe rescued what 15th century glass that he could and installed it in the west window, above the west door, which was unblocked during this time also.
Tombs
In the nave and aisles are many monuments, tombs and effigies celebrating the lives of many of its worshippers, gentry and former owners. The most famous is the Stanley monument which used to be on the north side of the altar in the church, but was moved to the south transept in the 18th century by George Durant II to make way for a monument to his father, George Durant I. There are two epitaphs inscribed on the Stanley monument, written by Shakespeare at the behest of Sir Edward Stanley for his parents, when the two met (surmised to be in London by Moorwood). This gives Tong Church the distinction of being the only setting where two of Shakespeare's epitaphs are carved into stone in one place. The only other epitaph written by Shakespeare that is carved in stone is that on Shakespeare's own grave in Stratford-upon-Avon. Shakespeare's connection to the Stanley family lies in the fact that they were (alongside other families) his patrons when he was in Lancashire. The two epitaphs are said to be very close in literature to sonnets 55 and 81 by Shakespeare. The tomb itself is on two levels with the upper level displaying the effigies of Sir Thomas Stanley and his wife, Margaret Vernon. The lower level has an effigy of their son, Edward, who is not memorialised with his wife as her tomb is in St Mary's Church in Walthamstow. The decorative figures that used to adorn the tomb (and are now much damaged) have been placed on the upper part of the Burgundian arch. Sir Thomas and his wife have their hands clasped in prayer, whereas Edward has his right hand on his chest. According to Watney, writing in the Church Monuments Society journal, this placement of Edward's hand signifies that the tomb was completed in his lifetime.
Effigies of Sir Fulke and Dame Isabel de Pembrugge lie together on a tomb located at the north side of the tower. The tomb is made from Nottingham Alabaster and has sustained some damage, although some of the original black paint in Isabel de Pembrugge's widow dress is still visible today. Dame Isabel died in 1446 and every Midsummer's Day, a chaplet of roses is placed around her head. RW Eyton, the great Shropshire antiquarian, reported in 1855 that this tradition had at that time died out, although he quoted an anonymous correspondent of The Gentleman's Magazine for 1800 to show that it had been alive, if not understood, in the late 18th century.
The effigies lie on an altar-tomb, and had the remains of a garland of flowers (then nearly reduced to dust) round the neck and breast. The sexton told me, that on every Midsummer day a new garland was put on, and remained so until the following, when it was annually renewed. As this is a singular custom, I could not forbear noticing it, and wish to be informed what was the origin of it.
Eyton explained that the custom was rooted in a deed sufficiently unusual to be recorded by the herald William Dugdale, by which a lord of Tong, Roger la Zouche, some time between 1237 and 1247, had granted land and rights to a neighbouring landowner.
This Roger, being Lord of the Mannor of Tonge, in Com. Salop. … did, by a fair Deed grant to Henry de Hugefort, and his Heirs, three Yard-Land, three Messuages, and certain Woods lying in Norton, and Shawe, (in the Parish of Tonge) with Paunage for a great number of Hogs, in the Woods belonging to that Mannor: As also liberty of Fishing in all his Waters there, excepting the great Pool of Tonge; with divers other Privileges, viz. of getting Nuts in those Woods for several days, &c. Rendring yearly to him the said Roger, and his Heirs, a Chaplet of Roses, upon the Feastday of the Nativity of St. Iohn Baptist, in case he or they should be then at Tonge; if not, then to be put upon the Image of the Blessed Virgin, in the Church of Tonge.
Subsequent authors have asserted out that since the Reformation when the statue was removed, the churchgoers have placed the flowers into the hands of the churches' "other lady". However, the original terms indicated that the chaplet was owed by the Hugford family to Roger la Zouche and his heirs, so the logic seems to be that it is now paid or commemorated on "the earliest Monument of the Manorial Lords which the Church happened to contain."
On the opposite side of the de Pembrugge's tomb is the tomb of Sir Richard Vernon and Benedicta de Ludlow. Again, it is carved from alabaster and Pevsner suggests this came from Chellaston in Derbyshire because the angels carved into it are of the type supplied by Thomas Prentys and Robert Sutton who worked in alabaster. The Vernons lived at Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, but when they married into the Tong lordship, they chose to be buried at St Bartholomew's.
West of the first Vernon monument and adjacent to one of the original 13th century pillars, is the tomb of Sir William Vernon and his wife, Margaret Swynfen. This is constructed of Purbeck marble which is inlaid with a brass representation of Sir William and his wife. Other members of the Vernon family have tombs next to the pulpit (Richard Vernon and Margaret Dymoke) and also Henry Vernon and his wife Anne (Talbot) Vernon, who are memorialised underneath a Burgundian archway that separates the Vernon Chapel from the south side of the nave.
The Vernon Chapel, divided from the south aisle by an ogee-headed door, was completed circa 1519/1520 and holds many monuments including one to Sir Henry Vernon (carved from Nottingham Alabaster) who built it.
In the chapel is a bust of Arthur Vernon, son of Sir Henry and Dame Anne Vernon, who died in 1517. The bust is on a corbel and shows Vernon holding a book in his right hand. The left hand is damaged. The miniature fan vaulting above his head replicates the fan vaulting in the chapel itself which is said to be similar to Henry VII's Chapel in Westminster Abbey and a rare example of fan vaulting in Shropshire. Arthur Vernon is also commemorated in a brasswork set into the floor of the chapel.
War memorials
There are three 20th century war memorials in the church. On the chancel arch are separate tablets for parish dead of the First (or 'Great') and Second World Wars. The former's is a brass plaque in a marble surround with crossed swords above a shield at the top, dedicated in glorious and undying memory of those from this parish who gave their lives in the great struggle of right against might. There is also an individual memorial plaque to Humphrey Herbert Orlando Bridgeman who during that same war went missing in action at Roeux in France on 11 May 1917, inscribed with the text from Ephesians: This is a great mystery.
Clergy
James Marshall, who was vicar between 1845 and 1857, was noted for only having one arm, (the other was amputated after a shooting accident), and for later converting to Catholicism. He described the parishioners at Tong in negative terms. Upon his transfer to another church he is recorded as saying that "I leave the heathen of Tong as I found them; unconverted and unconvertible".
The Reverend John E Auden was incumbent between 1896 and 1913. He had attempted to sell the Tong Cup to raise funds for the benefice, but found objection to this idea within the community. He authored numerous books including notes on Tong and Tong church and was the uncle of poet W. H. Auden.
The Very Reverend Robert Martin Colquhoun Jeffery (1935-2016) was the vicar at St Bartholomew's between 1978 and 1987. In his tenure he was made Archdeacon of Salop, which he accepted on condition that he could remain at Tong and oversee the 80 parishes under his control. He was later Dean of Worcester Cathedral and is buried in the churchyard. Jeffery latter penned a book about the church, Discovering Tong : its history, myths & curiosities.
The current incumbent is the Reverend Prebendary Pippa Thorneycroft. Thorneycroft was one of the first women priests to be ordained in 1994 after the General Synod voted to allow women to become full clergy. Thorneycroft was previously a chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II.
Images for kids
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Mass of Saint Gregory by Albrecht Dürer, 1511. The Catholic understanding of the Sacrifice of the Mass and the linked doctrine of transubstantiation expressed through the legend of Pope Gregory I’s vision.
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Remains of former almshouses from the south. St Bartholomew's Church, Tong, Shropshire.
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Remains of former almshouses from the north west corner.
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15th century high mass, in which the celebrant was assisted by a deacon and sub-deacon.
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Henry V of England shown kneeling before an image of the Man of Sorrows. He is thus assimilated to the legend of the Mass of Saint Gregory.
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All Saints Church, Lapley. Much of the building goes back to the 12th century, around the time the priory was established. The priory stood on the site of the timber-framed manor house, behind the church.
