History of St Mary's Shalford

Although Shalford's present parish church is only just over one hundred and fifty years old, it is at least the fourth building on a site that has been sacred for around a thousand years.

The first church was probably built here by a Saxon landowner in the tenth century. Before the Norman Conquest this part of Shalford was included in a great estate centred on Bramley, which extended from the Guildford boundary down to the Sussex border. Shalford was the oldest church on the estate and was one of Bramley's three churches mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. Both Bramley and Wonersh churches were originally founded as outlying chapels of Shalford.

Following the Conquest many churches were rebuilt and enlarged. In the late twelfth or early thirteenth century Shalford's Saxon church was replaced with the church illustrated below. The dedication to St Mary the Virgin probably dates from this rebuilding, which coincided with the growth of the great medieval cult of Our Lady. The new church originally had a nave and long chancel, with a small spire above a central tower. Over the next two centuries, transepts and a side chapel were added. These may have housed images of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Nicholas mentioned in a fourteenth century list of church rents.

In 1305 Edward I granted the Rectory of Shalford, including the advowson (the right to appoint the incumbent), to the Augustinian Priory and Hospital of St Mary extra Bishopsgate in London. From this date the presiding clergyman at Shalford has been a vicar rather than a rector. The first vicarage lay beside the road to Guildford, to the north of the church. Vicars of Shalford lived there for six and a half centuries, although the present vicarage is a modern house in East Shalford Lane.

The Priory and Hospital of St Mary extra Bishopsgate was dissolved by Henry VIII in 1539. The Rectory Manor of Shalford reverted to the Crown and was sold off, eventually coming to brothers George and John Austen in 1599. The Austens thus became lay rectors impropriate, and built a new mansion to the rear of the church. Their descendants over the course of the next three centuries became the major landowners in the parish and squires of the village.

The fabric of the church was in a very poor state by the end of the eighteenth century. Huge cracks had appeared in the tower and the west end of the nave, prompting a decision by parishioners in 1788 to demolish and rebuild. Robert Austen, as the lay rector and largest landowner in the parish, was given complete discretion in the church's reconstruction. Most of the stone used in rebuilding came from his own land at Nore near Hascombe. He adopted a contemporary style for his new church, with a cupola replacing the spire. The small apsidal chancel of the Georgian church, with a plain low altar table, reflected the profound theological changes that had occurred since the Reformation.

Robert Austen's new church soon proved too small for the growing population of the parish, and its appearance was considered "squat" and "unworthy". By the mid-nineteenth century the country was in the middle of an evangelical revival, with medieval styles popular once more. In 1846, a mere fifty-eight years after its construction, the church was demolished.

Its replacement, a Victorian church built in thirteenth century Early English style, is the building we have today. The architect was Benjamin Ferrey, a pupil of the renowned Augustus Pugin, but his design has also been criticised - this time for being too high in proportion to its length, with poor detail.

Despite such objections, Shalford's well-loved church has a tranquil atmosphere all its own, enhanced by attractive blue kneelers decorated with various colourful designs, and worked by members of the congregation in the 1980s.

The church once more houses a Lady Chapel, to the left of the chancel. Instead of the medieval image of Mary, destroyed at the Reformation, it now contains an African carving of the Virgin supplicating. The ash crucifix was carved by Martin Cundell in 1991. The chapel's east windows contain six small roundels of English fifteenth century glass, and two fine examples of old Flemish glass: on the right an Annunciation dated 1626, and on the left a harbour scene. These fragments were found in the vicarage loft in 1946 and may have been rescued from the demolition of the old church in 1788.

The Chancel holds memorials of the Austen family, rectors impropriate of Shalford and Bramley, including a marble monument to Robert Austen, the builder of the Georgian church; another commemorates Captain John Austen, who fought for the Parliamentary cause in the Civil War and died in 1660. Below, a brass from 1509 asks us to remember Roger Elyot, who leased the Rectory Manor from the Priory of St Mary extra Bishopsgate, and his wife Margaret.

On the panelling behind the altar are plaster shields decorated with symbols of Christ's Passion. The triptych-style altarpiece or Reredos, was painted by Christopher Webb around 1926, and given by long-serving churchwarden Edward Hamner Everett.

The dark oak Pulpit was given after the First World War in memory of Maurice John Hervey Bagot, a twenty-three year old lieutenant on the Good Hope, lost at the Battle of Coronel off Chile on 1 November 1914. On the north wall is a memorial to his shipmate of the same age, Lieutenant Douglas Courtenay Tudor, who perished in the same action. A list of other men from the parish who died in the Great War appears on the north wall.

In the Transept is a memorial to a survivor of the Charge of the Light Brigade. Col. Frederick George Shewell of the 8th Hussars led his men into battle with his open Bible propped against his saddle. His grave in the churchyard adjoins the south wall of the transept. The processional banners in the transept belonged to the Mothers Union and the Shalford branch of the British Legion. The transept windows commemorate Edgar Wigan of Bradstone Brook and his wife.

Along the Nave hang four lozenge-shaped hatchments displaying the arms of various members of the Austen and Godwin-Austen families. The Royal Coat of Arms hangs from the Gallery, and the arms of George III from the southern wall. In 1675 the advowson reverted to the Crown, and the Lord Chancellor now appoints vicars to the parish.

The East Window, and those in the Chancel and Nave are Victorian, given by the Austens and Godwin-Austens: one in the south aisle records the death of Lieutenant Frederick Austen killed at Isandhlwana in 1879 at the age of 26.

On the south wall hangs a List of Rectors and Vicars of the parish since 1199. Of these, William Oughtred, vicar from 1605-10, was the most famous mathematician of his day; his work inspired Sir Isaac Newton. More recently, David Railton, 1931-1935, was an army chaplain on the Western Front when he conceived the idea of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Also on the south wall a large Embroidery, worked by the Women's Institute and finished in 1938, draws on local legends of Shalford's connection with the Pilgrims' Way and with John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. The church itself is portrayed beyond the pilgrim's track.

The bell tower contains a peal of eight bells, expertly handled by an enthusiastic team of ringers.

Recent developments in the church include a new lighting scheme, installed in 1999, and the provision of a Children's Corner. Filled with reminders of its long history, Shalford's parish church stands at the start of the third millennium as a monument to the community it has served for a thousand years, and as a witness to the future.