The Church of St Mary the Virgin is an

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

church in the village of Shipley, in

West Sussex West Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Surrey to the north, East Sussex to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Hampshire to the west. The largest settlement is Cr ...

, England. It is in the

Diocese of Chichester The Diocese of Chichester is a Church of England diocese based in Chichester, covering Sussex. It was founded in 681 as the ancient Diocese of Selsey, which was based at Selsey Abbey, until the see was translated to Chichester in 1075. The cathe ...

. Built in the mid 12th century by the

Knights Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a Military order (religious society), military order of the Catholic Church, Catholic faith, and one of the most important military ord ...

, it is a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

Early history

There was a church here by around 1080, but no details are known.

Philip de Harcourt Philip de Harcourt was a medieval Lord Chancellor of England and Bishop of Bayeux. He was unsuccessfully elected as the Bishop of Salisbury. Life De Harcourt was the son of Robert who was the son of Anschetil, lord of Harcourt, Eure in France.< ...

, Dean of Lincoln, granted the church about 1139 to the

; it was one of their earliest endowments in England. The present building, one of the earliest Templar buildings in England, dates from about this time.A P Baggs, C R J Currie, C R Elrington, S M Keeling and A M Rowland, 'Shipley: Church', in ''A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 2, Bramber Rape (North-Western Part) Including Horsham'', ed. T P Hudson (London, 1986), pp. 123-125
British History Online. Retrieved 13 March 2023. The site of Shipley Preceptory, where the Knights Templar lived, is thought to have been the southern part of the churchyard. After the suppression of the Templars it passed to the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there ...

. The dedication to St Mary is recorded from 1456.

Description

The church is described in the ''

Victoria County History The Victoria History of the Counties of England, commonly known as the Victoria County History (VCH), is an English history project which began in 1899 with the aim of creating an encyclopaedic history of each of the historic counties of Englan ...

'': "The scale of the building reflects the prestige of the Templars, and its plainness expresses their combination of military and ascetic qualities." It is built of local sandstone, with

Caen stone Caen stone () is a light creamy-yellow Jurassic limestone quarried in north-western France near the city of Caen. The limestone is a fine grained oolitic limestone formed in shallow water lagoons in the Bathonian Age about 167 million years ...

for interior details. It has an axial tower, with the

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

to its east; to its west is the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

, north aisle, vestry and south porch. The tower arches are decorated.

19th century

Sir Charles Burrell in 1831 made the plans and loaned the money for work to the church: a north aisle was built, two galleries, erected in the 17th century, were replaced by a single west gallery, and the low pyramidal spire on the tower was replaced by battlements. There was restoration in 1892–93 by

J. L. Pearson John Loughborough Pearson (5 July 1817 – 11 December 1897) was a British Gothic Revival architect renowned for his work on churches and cathedrals. Pearson revived and practised largely the art of vaulting, and acquired in it a proficie ...

: the west gallery was removed, the roof of the nave was replaced, and a new north aisle was built, with an arcade of alternating round and octagonal piers.

Monuments

There are monuments in the church to the Burrell family, and in the south of the chancel an alabaster monument of 1616 to Sir Thomas Caryll and his family, restored about 1831 by the sculptor

John Edward Carew John Edward Carew (c. 1782 – 1 December 1868) was a notable Irish sculptor during the 19th century. His most prominent work is ''The Death of Nelson'', one of the four bronze panels on the pedestal of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. Lif ...

. The composer

John Ireland John Benjamin Ireland (January 30, 1914 – March 21, 1992) was a Canadian-American actor and film director. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia and raised in New York City, he came to prominence with film audiences for his supporting roles i ...

is buried in the churchyard, and is commemorated by a slate tablet on the south wall of the nave. In the north aisle is a tablet in memory of the German singer

Anny Ahlers Anny Ahlers (21 December 1907 – 14 March 1933) was a German actress and singer. She was born in Hamburg. Career She was born to Wilhelm Ahlers and his wife Augusta Victoria (Lieberg). Her father was an Army officer and her maternal grandmother ...

, who visited Shipley."Shipley – St Mary"
''Sussex Parish Churches''. Retrieved 13 March 2023.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shipley, St Mary's Church Grade I listed churches in West Sussex Church of England church buildings in West Sussex English churches with Norman architecture Buildings and Structures of the Knights Templar

Early history

Description

19th century

Monuments

See also

References