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St Michael and All Angels, Lydbury North, Shropshire

Location
(52°28′8″N, 2°57′13″W)
Lydbury North
SO 352 860
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Shropshire
now Shropshire
medieval Hereford
now Hereford
  • Barbara Zeitler
  • Ron Baxter
  • Barbara Zeitler
  • Ron Baxter
31 Aug 1998 (BZ), 14 June 2023 (RB)

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Description

Lydbury North is a village in the Shropshire Hills in the SW of the county, 8 miles SW of Church Stretton. The church is in the centre of the village, and is a large cruciform building with a W tower. The nave and chancel are 12thc as is the arch to the N transet chapel, but the chapel itself is 14thc. The S transept is 17thc and appears completely out of scale from the exterior. Plain 12thc windows survive on the N and S walls of the nave, and in the chancel. Features described here are the S chancel doorway, the tower arch, the N chapel arch and the font.

History

Lydbury North was held by the Bishop of Hereford, before and after the Conquest. It was a large manor of 53 hides, of which 32½ were waste on 1086. The population of 38 villans, 4 bordars and 8 radmen wiith 28 bordars suggests (with their families) a total population of some 400 people. Franco and William the Clerk held a member of the manor, and the church with its priests. It is a measure of the size and importance of the manor that it was called Lybury North to distinguish it from another of the Bishop's manors in Ledbury (Herefordshire).

After Domesday it is mentioned that Bishop Robert de Bethune (1131-48) bestowed the advowson of the church on the Canons of Shobdon. They were to move to Aymestry, and then to Wigmore, and Bethune's successor Bishop Foliot (1148-63) granted the church of Lydbury to the Canons of Wigmore in perpetuity.

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Interior Features

Arches

Tower/Transept arches
Nave arches

Furnishings

Fonts

Comments/Opinions

The tower arch is pointed and deeply chamfered as one would expect of a mid-13thc arch, but the scallop capitals are mid-12thc in form. They cannot be re-used, however, as they are chamfered too. A print of the font in Eyton, fp 202, shows it in much the same condition as it is now (and in the same location).

Bibliography

R. W. Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, 12 vols, London 1854-60, vol. 11, 194-202.

Historic England Listed Building. English Heritage Legacy ID: 257038

  1. J. Newman and N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Shropshire New Haven and London 2006, 388-90.

N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Shropshire, Harmondsworth 1958, 191.