The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin is located at the highest point in the town centre of

Bury, Greater Manchester Bury ( ) is a market town on the River Irwell in Greater Manchester, England. Metropolitan Borough of Bury is administered from the town, which had an estimated population of 78,723 in 2015. The town is within the historic county boundarie ...

, England. The church is located on the edge of the town centre, and is just a few minutes walk from the town's bus and tram station, as well as the Millgate Shopping Centre and the newly built the Rock. The main body of the church was completed on the 2 February 1876, the steeple predates it to 1842. It is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...

as a designated Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. The church is a regimental church of the

Lancashire Fusiliers The Lancashire Fusiliers was a line infantry regiment of the British Army that saw distinguished service through many years and wars, including the Second Boer War, the First and Second World Wars, and had many different titles throughout its 28 ...

, a former

garrison A garrison (from the French ''garnison'', itself from the verb ''garnir'', "to equip") is any body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it. The term now often applies to certain facilities that constitute a mil ...

church, and services are held for the garrison on

Remembrance Sunday Remembrance Sunday is held in the United Kingdom as a day to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts. It is held on the second Sunday in Nov ...

Gallipoli The Gallipoli peninsula (; tr, Gelibolu Yarımadası; grc, Χερσόνησος της Καλλίπολης, ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles ...

Sunday and on other occasions.

History

Church records suggest that the first church was built on the site in 971 A.D. when parishes were first formed by King Edgar of England, although this is likely to have been a wood and

thatch Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

structure. Churches of this type of construction are thought to have been used until a church in the

gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

style was completed in 1585. Between 1773 and 1780 the main body of this church was demolished and rebuilt leaving only the

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...

from the original church. The spire was replaced in 1842 but by 1870 the wood in the rest of the church had rotted and a new building was needed. The new church designed by the architect

J. S. Crowther Joseph Stretch Crowther (1820 – March 1893) (usually known as J. S. Crowther) was an English architect who practised in Manchester. His buildings are mainly located in Manchester, Cheshire and Cumbria. Life and career Crowther studied ...

, leaving the 1842 spire in place, was officially opened on Candlemas Day 1876. In July 2013, the church was the scene of a military funeral for murdered British soldier Lee Rigby. The service was attended by thousands of mourners, including Prime Minister

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

Architecture

The building is of dressed stone with slate roofs, with a buttressed 3-stage tower with a spire. The interior features a

hammerbeam A hammerbeam roof is a decorative, open timber roof truss typical of English Gothic architecture and has been called "...the most spectacular endeavour of the English Medieval carpenter". They are traditionally timber framed, using short beams ...

and tie-beam roof and mosaic flooring. There is stained glass by Hardman and

Clayton and Bell Clayton and Bell was one of the most prolific and proficient British workshops of stained-glass windows during the latter half of the 19th century and early 20th century. The partners were John Richard Clayton (1827–1913) and Alfred Bell (1832 ...

. The clock in the tower was the gift of Henry Whitehead, formerly High Sheriff of Lancashire.

References

External links

Home page of the Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Bury
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bury, Church of St Mary the Virgin

Saint Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

Church of England church buildings in Greater Manchester Anglican Diocese of Manchester

History

Architecture

See also

References

External links