St Mary de Lode Church is a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

St Mary de Lode, Gloucester.
A Church Near You, 2010. Retrieved 19 June 2011. church immediately outside the grounds of

Gloucester Cathedral Gloucester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Peter and the Holy and Indivisible Trinity and formerly St Peter's Abbey, in Gloucester, England, stands in the north of the city near the River Severn. It originated with the establishme ...

. It is believed by some to be on the site of the first Christian church in Britain. The church is in the

Diocese of Gloucester The Diocese of Gloucester is a Church of England diocese based in Gloucester, covering the non-metropolitan county of Gloucestershire. The cathedral is Gloucester Cathedral and the bishop is the Bishop of Gloucester. It is part of the Province ...

and Grade I listed by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

. It has also been known as ''St. Mary Before the Gate of St. Peter'', ''St. Mary Broad Gate'' and ''St. Mary De Port''.

History

The word "Lode" is from the old English word for water course or ferry and in this case it refers to a ferry that once crossed a branch of the

River Severn The River Severn (, ), at long, is the longest river in Great Britain. It is also the river with the most voluminous flow of water by far in all of England and Wales, with an average flow rate of at Apperley, Gloucestershire. It rises in t ...

to the west of the church, which no longer exists. In 1979, archaeological excavations in the nave showed that the church is built over two Roman buildings. The first, probably a baths building erected in the second century, was destroyed in the fifth century and replaced by a timber

mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type o ...

containing three burials. The mausoleum was destroyed by fire and followed by a sequence of buildings interpreted as churches, culminating in the medieval church of St Mary. It is suggested that the original church was a post-Roman

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

foundation, before the

Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

occupied this area. The earliest reference to a church in written records dates from the late eleventh century. It then comprised a nave, chancel and tower which was destroyed by fire in 1190. A new chancel was built in the thirteenth century. A local legend, first recorded in the eighteenth century, holds that the church was the burial place of the legendary King Lucius, first Christian king of Britain, who was said to have established a bishopric in Gloucester in the second century A.D. This legend combined with the results of the archaeological work has apparently inspired the local belief that the church was built on the site of an ancient

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

temple, and was the first Christian church in Britain. A tomb effigy in the north wall of the chancel formerly pointed out as marking the grave of King Lucius is of fourteenth-century date, and shows a tonsured priest, perhaps William de Chamberleyn who was vicar in 1302–5. In March 1643 and also in 1646, during the

English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...

, the church was used as a prison to hold royalist soldiers captured by Sir

William Waller Sir William Waller JP (c. 159819 September 1668) was an English soldier and politician, who commanded Parliamentarian armies during the First English Civil War. Elected MP for Andover to the Long Parliament in 1640, Waller relinquished ...

and Lieut. Col.

Edward Massey Sir Edward Massey, also spelt Massie, () was an English soldier and politician from Cheshire, who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1646 and 1674. He fought for Parliament in the First English Civil War, when he became famou ...

.St. Mary de Lode Church.
City of Gloucester, Places of Worship, 2010. Retrieved 10 April 2013.

Architecture

The church has a Norman central tower of about 1190. The nave was rebuilt in 1826 in early

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

style with cast iron columns, by James Cooke, a local monumental mason. A Norman arch leads from the nave into the tower, which is

barrel-vaulted A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...

and connected through a thirteenth-century arch with the chancel. The chancel was begun like the tower in about 1190 but extended and vaulted in the thirteenth century. Further restorations to the church took place in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the west part of the nave was converted for use as a church hall in 1980. There is an octagonal pulpit, apparently made up of fifteenth-century carved wooden panels, and an eighteenth-century organ brought in 1972 from the now-redundant church of St Nicholas, Westgate Street. There are

stained glass window Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...

s commemorating the

Royal Gloucestershire Hussars The Royal Gloucestershire Hussars was a volunteer yeomanry regiment which, in the 20th century, became part of the British Army Reserve. It traced its origins to the First or Cheltenham Troop of Gloucestershire Gentleman and Yeomanry raised i ...

and the Gloucester poet

Ivor Gurney Ivor Bertie Gurney (28 August 1890 – 26 December 1937) was an English poet and composer, particularly of songs. He was born and raised in Gloucester. He suffered from bipolar disorder through much of his life and spent his last 15 years in psy ...

. In the grounds is a monument to Bishop John Hooper, who was burnt at the stake in Gloucester.

Today

St Mary de Lode remains a functioning church with regular services and a Sunday School. The parish is now combined with those of St Swithun's, Hempsted, and St Mary de Crypt. The church is the regular venue for concerts by the ''Gloucester Music Society''.The Gloucester Music Society.
Retrieved 20 June 2011.

References

External links

Detailed description of the church organ.Inside view.Location map.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Mary de Lode Church, Gloucester Church of England church buildings in Gloucester Grade I listed churches in Gloucestershire History of Gloucester English churches with Norman architecture Gothic Revival church buildings in England

History

Architecture

Today

See also

References

External links