St Laurence’s Church, York
Since we moved our Sunday meetings out of our old building in the centre of York and into the school, we have experienced rapid growth. We are now frequently full with standing room only at the back. We urgently need a new larger place.
St Laurence’s Church of England is near our present location and we had thought it could be our future home. We had talks with the Anglican Church and had agreed to enter into a building share arrangement. However, before the share agreement was signed St Laurence’s church changed their mind about sharing their building with us. They wanted to try and grow without us taking their prime morning service time. We can hardly blame them.
We have now come to terms with this and are now looking elsewhere to accommodate our growing church. For those interested in the site, the story of St Lawrence’s is as follows:
The Old Church
There’s been a church here since the 1100’s. The tower of this original church is still standing in the churchyard and almost hidden by tall trees in summer. It is the surviving remnant of the medieval church dating from 1316, which served the parish just outside Walmgate. Only this tower remains, standing there on its own, after the rest of the building was demolished in the 1880s. The tower is enhanced by the fine Norman doorway from the old church of St Laurence which was re-erected into the east side of the tower when that church was demolished. The top storey of the tower was added in the 15th century.
This old church was badly damaged in 1644. York was a Royalist stronghold in the Civil War, and the Parliamentary army besieging the city had big guns stationed on Lamel Hill, where the water tower is now. They were shelling Walmgate Bar, but they weren’t very accurate, and hit the church as well as all the houses near the Bar. The church remained semi-ruined till 1669, when restoration was started.
By 1719, the church was in a fit state to hold one of York’s most exalted society weddings. On January 14th that year, Henrietta Maria Yarburgh, daughter of the Yarburgh family of Heslington Hall, married Sir John Vanburgh, the architect who designed Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace.
See post for some photographs of the old church before it was demolished.
The New Church
The population of the parish went up enormously in the next 150 years after that grand wedding. It went from 59 families in 1743 to an estimated 7,000 people in the 1870’s.
The old church held only 230 so an appeal was launched by the Vicar for a church to hold 800 people at a cost of £6,000 (or £7,500 with a tower).
The new church was consecrated in 1883 and was embellished and improved over the decades. The stained glass is probably the best collection of late 19th-early 20th century glass in York. Much of the woodwork is by Robert Thompson of Kilburn, bearing his famous trademark mouse. Most recently, a ring of eight bells was installed for the Millennium. The bells are rung for services and by visiting bands. It is known nationally as a fine place to ring a peal.
Thanks to Paul Shaw for providing the following information:
From Pevsner’s Buildings of England: York and the East Riding (1972) (a standard text) we are told that the Norman doorway of the old church (C13 and C15) includes on one capital (top of the column) is Sagittarius, on the others the Agnus Dei and a monster. Of the new church, that it was built 1883-1892 to the designs of J. G. Hall of Canterbury. It is described as ‘the most ambitious period church of Outer York and shows an extremely competent handling of the Early English style’ It is noted that the windows are all lancets and the capitals of columns ‘abundantly foliated - stiff leaf as well as waterleaf’. the font is described as ‘Small, Perpendicular, with friezes of tiny genre motifs’. Pevsner was a very distinguished architectural historian and not easily impressed so this is quite an accolade!
From Bartholomew City Guides-York by John Hutchinson and D M Palliser (1980) we are told that ‘St Laurence’s tower is the only relic of pre-siege [1644] Lawrence street’. It is noted that the tower has had its ‘pretty battlements restored away’ and certainly old pictures suggest a more florid and elaborate parapet once was there. Also mentioned in the graveyard is ‘The Rigg monument by Plows, marvellously ripe in a railed enclosure full of ivy, commemorates six children killed in a boating accident of 1830′. Of the Victorian church, it is stated that it was built in 1881 and the tower in 1893. They seem less impressed by the architecture, suggesting that it represents a throwback to the cheap ‘Commissioners’ churches’ of the 1830s. ‘It has lancets, Kentish rag, heavy French detailing of an unsettled style, and a towering, narrow interior. The 15th-cent font with 3 tiers of minute carvings repays the closest of inspections’.
From This is York by C B Knight (1951), a very erudite local historian, we are told that the historian of York Francis Drake (1736) believed the church to be ancient, but that his own researches have not confirmed the date of its foundation, though its catalogue of rectors goes back to 1316, and its annual value in 1428 was £9. It was nearly destroyed in the 1644 siege, but by Drake’s day was ‘in very good repair’. The dates he gives for the building of the new church are identical to those given in the Bartholomew guide. As a boy, he recalls the ancient stocks were still in the churchyard, though apparently a replica of them is in the church tower. The book includes a lovely illustration of the old church tower.
Further to this, I was interested to try to find something out about the architect of the Victorian church. His name does not appear amongst the most well-known of Victorian architects, but often much highly competent church work at this period was done by locally-based architects of whom little is known. I found reference on the web to 2 works by him in his home town:
Finally, regarding the lovely stained glass window showing the church choir, I strongly suspect that it is by a local artist, Harry Stammers, whose work is very distinctive and is represented in a number of churches in the locality e.g. a lovely Annunciation in St Olave’s near the museum gardens - though he did have a pupil who produced work in a similar style called Harvey, see:
