The early Archbishops
he historical importance of St Mary’s can be attributed to its association with the See of Canterbury and some of its early, illustrious Archbishops,The story begins in 827, when the Lady Cwenthryth of Mercia, in making redress for injustices performed by her father, Coenwulf, surrendered to Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury the tract of land that included Herga (sacred grove) the earliest recorded name for Harrow on the Hill.
By the time of the Conquest the adjacent hamlets of Alperton, Kenton, Pinner, Preston, Sudbury,Wembley and Harrow Weald had joined this far flung Parish of Canterbury.William the Conqueror appointed his friend, the Italian Abbot and scholar, Lanfranc as Archbishop, to introduce Norman ideas to the English Church.This office automatically made him owner and Lord of the Manor of Herga.
It was 20 years later, towards the end of his career, that Lanfranc laid the foundation stone of the new church that would dominate the landscape of his 12,000 acre North London parish.The sandy soils of the Hill did not provide a firm foundation for the substantial building he envisioned so building materials had to be sourced expensively from other regions.The church took seven years to build and Lanfranc did not live to see its completion. It was therefore his successor as Archbishop, St Anselm, who consecrated the finished church building, dedicated in the name of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on 4 January 1094. Some 40 years later major work was done to the tower: a substantial doorway was created in its west wall and deep windows were inserted into the north and south walls, while the height of the tower itself was raised to the level of the present ceiling. Of the original 11th-century construction only the lower section of the tower, built in brown sandstone, remains today.Later on in the 12th century, St Mary’s enjoyed an association with Thomas Becket (1120-70), yet another Norman cleric who not only rose to the rank of Archbishop of Canterbury, but also gained sainthood.Thomas was resident in his Rectory at Harrow on two crucial occasions during his famous conflict with Henry II, the last being in December 1170, just two weeks before his assassination in Canterbury Cathedral at the hands of four of Henry’s knights.
n 1190, major reconstruction of St Mary’s began: the
archway between the nave and the chancel was built, along
with the complete rebuilding of the chancel itself. In the
early 13th century, the appointment of one of the foremost
architects of the medieval period, Elias de Dereham, as
Rector, resulted in the completion of the rebuilding of
the nave with a magnificent arcade of columns and arches;
Dereham inserted doorways in the south and north aisles
and was probably responsible for the Purbeck marble font
– all of which survive to the present day. One of St Mary’s
historic treasures, the iron bound, solid oak chest (now
displayed in the north transept) is also thought to date from
Dereham’s time.
No rebuilding programmes took place during the 14th
century except for the creation of a small room above the
original Norman porch.This space, known as a parvise, is
now thought to have been a chantry founded by William de
Bosco, Rector of St Mary’s between 1312 and 1324.
The Second Reconstruction
ppointed in 1437 as Rector by Archbishop Chichele (famous for founding All Souls College, Oxford), John Byrkhede presided over the most significant period of reconstruction in St Mary’s history. During his 30-year employment Byrkhede replaced the original roof with one of even greater elevation and employed the finest craftsmen to create the internal decoration of the numerous oak beams, bosses and cornices in best 15th-century style.They carved medieval figures, musicians,Apostles and grotesques in abundance – over 300 in total. Byrkhede created the clerestory windows; he also raised the height of the tower to make a belfry for the set of five bells he installed. Most importantly however, on top of the tower, he built the magnificent spire as his own personal tribute to the greater glory of God – the spire that for more than five centuries has made St Mary’s a landmark church, a spire covered by 12 tons of lead. It was Byrkhede’s vision which brought about the final stage in the architectural development of St Mary’s.
The Dissolution
n 1534, an act of Parliament had made Henry VIII the Supreme Head of the new, Protestant Church of England. By 1536 Henry was disbanding the Catholic monasteries, priories, convents and friaries throughout his realm. Collated as Rector of Harrow on the Hill in 1537 was Richard Layton, Henry’s chief commissioner of the Dissolution. St Mary’s like every other church in the kingdom quickly had to adjust to the requirements of the new creed: the architectural casualty was the rood loft and screen, whose depiction and focus on the Cross was no longer acceptable and had to be completely removed. Dissolution of Chantries followed soon after and the right to appoint theVicar of St Mary’s for the first time fell into lay hands following Henry’s dismantling of the Manorial system and the link with Canterbury that had existed for nearly 800 years.
The Foundation of Harrow School
prosperous yeoman farmer from Preston, a hamlet three miles distant from Harrow, was a regular worshipper with his wife at St Mary’s.Their names were John and Joan Lyon. Childless, they were charitably minded and active in parish affairs; they were particularly concerned when the day school at Harrow, formerly run under the patronage of the Archbishop of Canterbury, was deprived of funding after the break with Canterbury in 1545. John Lyon decided to use his wealth to provide for a new, free grammar school for local children. He petitioned Queen Elizabeth for a Royal Charter allowing permission for such a Foundation and this was granted in 1572.The couple’s wealth was finally released after their respective deaths in 1585 and 1608, and the Governors that Lyon had appointed to establish the School began the task of acquiring the land and planning “Harrow School” - the first building of John Lyon’s Foundation.The first Master and first boy were registered in 1615 and teaching began in the original Fourth Form Room of “Old Schools”.The connection between the School and St Mary’s remained close.The schoolboys worshipped there, their masters preached and in due course were buried there. As the School prospered, a new gallery was built along the whole north aisle of the church to accommodate the growing number of pupils, followed by another gallery at the west end of the nave stretching across the arch and into the tower. (Both galleries were removed in the 19th century.)
Civil War – Napoleonic War
t Mary’s did not escape the fanaticism of the Puritan followers of Oliver Cromwell after the English Civil War: evidence for this can be seen in the deliberately disfigured faces of Byrkhede’s Apostle carvings on the roof beams.The second half of the century saw the addition of two new bells in 1654 and 1684; the re-leading of the magnificent spire took place in 1704.A splendid pulpit (of Jacobean origin) was gifted to the church by Mr Tanner Arnold also at the beginning of the 18th century. However, the general state of repair was deteriorating considerably as the century advanced.A letter published in the Gentleman’s Magazine of 1786 recorded that the church was “... in such a ruinous state that it is dangerous to enter...There is not a whole pane of glass left in the windows, very large cracks in the walls and the East window obliged (it) to be propped up to prevent it falling...” Such would have been the appearance of St Mary’s when, in 1801, the young Byron first came the School. During the four years he was a pupil at Harrow he spent hours in the graveyard perched on the raised, flat- surfaced tomb of Mr Peachey, gazing out from the hilltop location, westwards towards Windsor. In later life, in his Lines Written Beneath an Elm he recalled the pleasure of those hours, shaded by the drooping branches of an elm tree, and expressed his wish to be buried in that place. (The Peachey Stone became something of a place of pilgrimage after his early death at Missalonghi in 1824 and was even visited by Queen Victoria in 1850.)
Cunningham and Gilbert Scott
ohn William Cunningham was appointed Vicar of St Mary’s
in 1811 and his stay lasted for a full 50 years. During his
tenancy he oversaw yet another re-leading of the spire – interestingly, the work was completed by Hannah Putman,
wife of the contractor who died suddenly just after starting
the project. In the 1830s, Cunningham’s dislike of High
Anglicanism led to a falling-out with the Head Master of
Harrow School, Dr Christopher Wordsworth, who decided
the School now needed a Chapel of its own.Wordsworth
argued too that the balconies in St Mary’s had become
inadequate for the ever-increasing number of boys attending
the School.Thus the first School chapel was built in the
mid-19th century. Cunningham presided over an era when
the railway came to Harrow and new communities sprang
up, each building their own places of worship. His parish
contracted.
Given the dilapidation which had occurred in the late 18th
century there was no doubt that Cunningham’s greatest
achievement was to instigate the complete renovation of
St Mary’s, which began in 1846.The architect, Giles Gilbert
Scott, a dedicated exponent of Gothic revivalism (in the vein
of Pugin, currently rebuilding the Palace of Westminster in
that tradition) was entrusted with the work. He covered
the roughcast walls with flint stone, he extended the
battlemented parapet around the tower to the entire roof;
and added a gabled end to the south porch and south
transept; he re-roofed the chancel; he put in a magnificent
Gothic East window; he took down the gallery at the back of
the nave and opened up the arch into the tower once more;
he created a new stone porch on the north side and moved
the 13th-century wooden door from the south to the north
doorway. He stripped out the box pews, lowered and re-
sited the pulpit, and built a new vestry.Without doubt he
rescued St Mary’s from the decay that had begun in the 18th
century while remaining true to the visions of Byrkhede and
Lanfranc.
Twentieth Century
ight hundred years after the foundation of St Mary’s, a new organ was installed and electricity brought in to replace the gas lighting of the 19th century.The church architect, Sir Aston Webb, supervised the renewal of stained glass in Scott’s East window (to the design of Sir Ninian Comper) and commissioned the series of stained glass memorial windows in the five lancet windows. He laid a new marble floor in front of the altar and added the seven lamps hanging above it. In 1913 he replaced Scott’s reredos. After WWI repairs to the nave roof and tower were needed and the bells all had to be rehung. Renovation was becoming costly. Thus it was that for the 850th anniversary of the Consecration of St Mary’s, a body called The Friends of St Mary’s was established to raise funds for the repair and renovation of the fabric of the church and its precincts. Since then the group has raised many thousands of pounds to help fund the numerous repair projects, including yet another re-leading of the spire in 1967. The roof of the chancel was redecorated in 1972 with the present design of blue and gold.The incumbent Vicar, Guy Whitcombe, had been impressed by the ceiling of the library at Kenwood and wanted to introduce something similar in St Mary’s. The paintwork was applied in just six weeks by the specialist company, Cambell, Smith & Co and has lasted well. To commemorate the HM The Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977, two new bells were cast and installed in the belfry bringing the total up to the present ten. For the 900th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone by Lanfranc in 1087 it was decided to recreate the magnificent cape that Byrkhede wears in his memorial brass on the chancel floor. Rosemary Priestman embroidered the replica which can now be seen in the glass case specially made for it by Harold Dudman.The parvise about the south porch was restored as a chantry in 1992.
