St Alkmund

The nave and chantry chapels of old St Alkmund's were demolished in 1793 and the rebuilt church joins a Gothic Revival style nave and chancel to a medieval tower and spire (c1430) which supports one of the 'vanes' of Shrewsbury' in Housman's 'Shropshire Lad'. 

Rebuilding took place during the incumbency of Richard de Courcy (his sermons are still available on Google Books!), a man the Archbishop of Dublin had refused to ordain because of his strong Methodist leanings. Consequently the rebuilt church is a clear open space (a plain preaching box of 'Impoverished Churchwarden Gothic' according to Cranage!) with a series of monuments (some from the old church and one to a founder of the Anglican Temperance Movement) and a magnificent painted east window by Francis Eginton. This window and the other 12 large windows were constructed with elegant slim cast iron frames, cast by Matthew Boulton at Coalbrookdale, only three of these remain. The others were replaced by smaller stone mullioned windows during Victorian reordering purportedly to provide a more reverent 'Puginesque' ambience. The wood ceiling, (also Victorian), contributes to the fine acoustics of the large open space. 

During this reordering the bells were moved up into the spire but were moved so high that the stability of the spire was threatened by the ringing of a full peal. In the 1970's the bells were taken down and they are now in St Andrew's Cathedral, Honolulu. Inspection of the tower walls inside the west (entrance) door shows where they were originally hung.

The churchyard (maintained by Shrewsbury Town Council) provides an open park like area and one of the few legible inscriptions on the laid down tomb stones intriguingly reads; 'God takes the good, too good on earth to stay. He leaves the bad too bad to take away'. One can only speculate on the family feuds behind this inscription.