St Michael & All Angels
Lyonshall, Herefordshire
Occupies an imposing hillside setting with Norman origins but predominately ‘Early English’ to ‘Decorated’.
People have worshipped on this site as far back as 1120, when it was home to an order of Tironensian monks, a branch of the Benedictine Order. There were only four houses of this order in England: three in Hampshire and one here at Titley.
The present church dates from 1865, and is probably a third or fourth rebuild. The handsome west tower was built around 1834, designed and paid for by a Lady Elizabeth Coffin Greenly, whose remains are buried beneath it, along with those of her mother. Lady Greenly appears to have been a most significant character in St Peter's history, well known for her ardent support of the Welsh causes of the day, and her eccentric habit of getting up in the middle of the night to write sermons.
The churchyard has been the site of many a pilgrimage from Hungary, containing as it does a monument to a Hungarian national hero, General Lázár Mészáros, who was Supreme Commander of the Army and Minister of National Defence in the Cabinet of the First Independent Hungarian Government of 1849. Eventually defeated in physical warfare and forced to flee his homeland, he spent eight years moving around the world. On his way to Switzerland in 1858, he stopped off to visit friends in Titley. He was ill on arrival at Liverpool on October 25th; less than a month later he died in Titley and was buried in a walled grave here.
