Christian worship has taken place at this location for over a thousand years. The Abbey Church of Saint Peter & Saint Paul, was constructed at the site of a small wooden Anglo Saxon Church in 1083.
The Abbey was founded as a Benedictine Monastery by Roger de Montgomery in 1083 on the site of an existing Saxon church. After the Dissolution of all Monasteries by King Henry VIII, part of the Abbey survives to this day as a Parish Church.
The bells were converted to the Ellacombe apparatus in 1909, There are eight blue ropes running up inside the tower, jut to the right of the Stained glass window. The bells are rung by one person like a sort of Carillion.
"At the Dissolution, the Abbey had two rings of fiv8 bells, one in the current tower and one in a central tower. In 1673 a ring of eight was cast by George Oldfield of Nottingham and these were replaced over time by the present bells. Nine peals were rung at the Abbey in the eighteenth century. The bells were rung full-circle until at least 1895 but in 1909 concern over the safety of the tower led to the bells being removed and rehung without wheels in a new frame. They are currently sounded by an Ellacombe apparatus, whereby they can be rung by a single person.
Treble and 2nd - Thomas Mears II of London, 1825
3rd - John Taylor & Co of Loughborough, 1884
4th - John Briant of Hertford, 1812
5th - Charles and George Mears of London, 1846
6th - Abel Rudhall of Gloucester 1745
7th - John Warner & Sons of London, 1877
Tenor - Abraham Rudhall of Gloucester, 1713" Text Source; (
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Ellacombe apparatus;
" A method for performing change ringing of church bells requiring only one person. Unlike the traditional method, where the bells are spun 360 degrees to sound them and one person is needed for each bell, instead the bells are kept static and a hammer is struck against the inside of the bell. Each hammer is connected by a rope to a fixed frame in the bell-ringing room. When in use the ropes are taut, and pulling one of the ropes towards the operator will strike the hammer against the bell. For normal, full circle, ringing the ropes are slackened to allow the hammers to drop away from the moving bells.
The system was devised by Reverend Henry Thomas Ellacombe of Gloucestershire, who first had such a system installed in Bitton in 1821. It is believed he created the system to make bell-ringers redundant, so churches did not have to tolerate the behaviour of unruly bell-ringers just so they could have their bells expertly rung.
The Ellacombe apparatus has been removed from many towers in the UK, but there are still visible holes in the ceiling which the ropes would come through into the ringing chamber, and often the frames are still in the ringing chamber, without ropes. In towers where the apparatus remains intact, it is generally used like a Carillon to play tunes." Text source; (
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The Abbey Church is the Parish church of Holy Cross, Shrewsbury in the Dioceses of Litchfield.
Shrewsbury is located in the landlocked county of Shropshire on the border of the Welsh Marches of Mid & North Wales, & to the East is surrounded by the Counties of Cheshire, Staffordshire, Herefordshire & Worcestershire.
Shrewsbury boasts over 600 listed buildings including the Castle, now a regimental museum and the world-famous Shrewsbury Abbey, home of the fictional Brother Cadfael.
Detailed history of the Abbey;
"The site of Shrewsbury Abbey is a very ancient one. A wooden Saxon church of St. Peter, possibly a small monastery, was recorded here in the Domeday Survey. St. Wulfstan, the Bishop of Worcester (from 1062), used to stop there to pray on his journeys between Chester and his own Sées.
The Benedictine Abbey of today, however, is a post-Conquest foundation, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul. It was in 1083 that the priest of St. Peter's, returning from a pilgrimage to Rome, persuaded Roger de Montgomery, the newly appointed Earl of Shrewsbury, to raise the already existing church into a grand abbey. Roger had two monks brought from his lands in Sées (Normandy) to direct the building arrangements and monastic life was established four years later. Fulchered, the first Abbot, also came from Sées. The founder himself took the vows in his Abbey in 1094, three days before his death.
Though the Abbey flourished, during the early twelfth century, the monks of Shrewsbury apparently felt their monastery incomplete for the lack of the relics of a special patron to honour and bring glory to the name of God - not to mention lucrative offerings from vast hoards of pilgrims. The Prior, Robert Pennant, therefore took it upon himself to find a suitable candidate whose remains he might appropriate for his Abbey Church. With his Abbot's blessing, he led an expedition into Wales where, in 1138, he acquired the bones of St. Gwenfrewi from the inhabitants of Gwytherin in Gwynedd. Known as St. Winifred to the English, this lady was brought back to Shrewsbury and enshrined, probably behind the high altar, with great ceremony. Her holiness did indeed make the Abbey a major pilgrimage centre, bringing honour and prestige to its Abbots.
The Medieval Abbots of Shrewsbury were some of the most significant ecclesiastics in the Country. They were often drawn into political life because of their great diplomatic and administrative skills. They would be called upon to inspect the local militia and survey the town's castle; they served as Justices of the Peace and as gaolers for important hostages; and, from the 13th century, they sat in Parliament." Text Source & More Info; (
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