Country England Churchmanship Broad Church Dedication St Mary Parish Melton Mowbray Diocese Diocese of Leicester Heritage designation Listed building | Denomination Church of England Website Website Status Active Phone +44 1664 503530 Designated as world heritage site 24 October 1950 | |
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Address Melton Mowbray LE13 1AJ, UK Similar Twinlakes Theme Park, St Mary the Virgin's Church - B, Haymarket Memorial Clock To, All Saints Church - Loughborough, Melton Mowbray railway st | ||
St mary s church melton mowbray leicestershire
St Mary's Church, Melton Mowbray is a parish church in the Church of England located in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. By 2016, the church, described as "one of the finest parish churches in Leicestershire" had fallen into a poor state of repair and was deemed "unfit for purpose" leading to an appeal for £2m to restore it.
Contents
Features
St Mary's Church is the largest and "stateliest" parish church in Leicestershire, 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. It contains a number of notable monuments including the tomb of Roger de Mowbray, 1st Baron Mowbray and others dating from the 14th to the 18th century; also a memorial tablet to equine artist John Ferneley (1782 to 1860).
The church has a large choir containing around 40 members. It 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.
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
Taken from handwritten list in the church on the organ console: