St Mary's Church is an

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of t ...

church in

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...

Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant ur ...

, England; the church's

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wit ...

tower is the oldest surviving structure in the town.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...

, the author Lewis Carroll, preached here and his funeral was held in the church in 1898. Coming under the

Diocese of Guildford __NOTOC__ The Diocese of Guildford is a Church of England diocese covering eight and half of the eleven districts in Surrey, much of north-east Hampshire and a parish in Greater London. The cathedral is Guildford Cathedral and the bishop is the ...

, the church has been Grade I

listed Listed may refer to: * Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm * Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic * Endangered species in biology * Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...

since 1953.St Mary's Listing on the Historic England website
/ref>

History

A stone Anglo-Saxon church built in about 1040 AD the tower of which still stands today,St Mary's on the 'Guildford: This Is Our Town' website
/ref> St Mary's Church is believed to stand on the same site as Guildford's first church which was probably a small timber structure built in about 600 AD. St Mary's Church tower, which is built of rough flint, is the oldest surviving piece of architecture in Guildford being at least 70 years older than the nearby Guildford Castle. As Guildford was a popular Royal residence in the 12th and 13th Centuries and as St Mary's is very close to Guildford Castle it was used for Royal worship and

Thomas Becket Thomas Becket (), also known as Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London and later Thomas à Becket (21 December 1119 or 1120 – 29 December 1170), was an English nobleman who served as Lord Chancellor from 1155 to 1162, and the ...

may have celebrated

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different ele ...

here. In about 1120 the Canons of

Merton Priory Merton Priory was an English Augustinian priory founded in 1114 by Gilbert Norman, Sheriff of Surrey under King Henry I (1100–1135). It was situated within the manor of Merton in the county of Surrey, in what is today the Colliers Wood area ...

acquired St Mary's and rebuilt the church giving it the cross-shaped plan we see today. In the 1140s the St John's chapel was added to the south of the church. Much of the present building dates from the 1180s. The

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. ...

had an apse until it was demolished in 1825. In the 14th century a large number of windows were inserted, while the chancel has a 15th-century east window of five cinquefoiled lights with tracery over, in a four-centred head. During the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

the church underwent significant changes in the way it was decorated but the

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...

s mainly survived including one on the South side of a carving of ravens placing food into

Elijah Elijah ( ; he, אֵלִיָּהוּ, ʾĒlīyyāhū, meaning "My El (deity), God is Yahweh/YHWH"; Greek form: Elias, ''Elías''; syr, ܐܸܠܝܼܵܐ, ''Elyāe''; Arabic language, Arabic: إلياس or إليا, ''Ilyās'' or ''Ilyā''. ) w ...

’s mouth. Two other corbels in the north aisle, however, which had been carved to show angels still show signs of destruction from that period. Guildford Methodist Church officially joined St Mary's on 1 September 2013, and the church is now a joint Anglican and Methodist congregation as well as being part of a joint parish with nearby

Holy Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God th ...

Design

In 1825 the

was shortened to allow for the adjacent Quarry Street to be widened. In 1862 St Mary’s was

restored ''Restored'' is the fourth studio album by American contemporary Christian music musician Jeremy Camp. It was released on November 16, 2004 by BEC Recordings. Track listing Standard release Enhanced edition Deluxe gold edition Standard ...

by Thomas Goodchild (died 1885) when the stonework was renewed and the gallery removed. Goodchild's restoration did not eliminate the 11th- and 12th-century fabric of this ancient parish church. The whole of the exterior of the walling (excepting that of the tower and the east wall, which is of chalk) has been encased with flint, and all the

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

es are Victorian except one. The East window is by William Holland and shows The Nativity, the Baptism, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord. The West window of the north aisle is by the Royal Bavarian Art Institute for Stained Glass and dates from about 1850. The

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a " sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mo ...

is Victorian and has a square bowl of

clunch Clunch is a traditional building material of chalky limestone rock used mainly in eastern England and Normandy. Clunch distinguishes itself from archetypal forms of limestone by being softer in character when cut, such as resembling chalk in lo ...

with scalloped under-edge, resting on a chamfered square stem and four small stone shafts with scalloped capitals and moulded bases. The pulpit, which was added by Goodchild, is of stone and marble and replaced one from the 17th-century.

Lewis Carroll

From the present pulpit the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson ("Lewis Carroll") used to occasionally preach when staying with his family in their home, ''The Chestnuts'' nearby. It was also at St Mary's that his funeral was held.

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, '' The Buildings of England'' ...

, ''Buildings of England, Surrey'' (1971) pp. 273–4

Gallery

File:West Window St Marys Guildford.jpg, The West Window File:Lady Chapel St Marys Guildford.jpg, The Lady Chapel File:Lectern St Marys Guildford.jpg, The

lectern A lectern is a reading desk with a slanted top, on which documents or books are placed as support for reading aloud, as in a scripture reading, lecture, or sermon. A lectern is usually attached to a stand or affixed to some other form of support. ...

File:Dodgson Plaque. St Marys Guildford.jpg, Plaque commemorating

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequ ...

on the

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, acces ...

File:Font St Marys Guildford.jpg, The

in St Mary's

References

External links