Parish Notes Northumberland

Alnwick St Michael

[Population 1911: 3,060]

Church

The earliest religious structure at Alnwick was the Norman church of Eustace Fitz-John, circa, A.D. 1140. This edifice appears to have been rebuilt about the year 1300, with the exception of the Apse, which was retained in teh new Structure. A restoration took p lace about a century later, when the north aisle was extended, and clesrestory windows inserted in the north arcade. About the middle of the fifteenth century the present beautiful ad capacious chancel replaced the old Norman apse, the south aisle was lengthened to correspond with the north, and a tower was erected at the west end. Among the ancient memorials are three very fine ones at the east end of the church. One represents a female, whose head rests within a trefoil canopy of decorated work. On each side of her head is an angel, and at her feet a dog. Another is that of a layman whose head is enveiled within a crocketted trefoil canopy. A belt encircles his waist, to which is attached a purse, indicative of the office he held. The remaining figure is the recumbent effigy of a monk with the head resting on a pillar, and the hands joined in prayer. At his feet also is a dog. During some repairs to the north aisle in 1818, two statues were discovered; one represents a martyred saint bound hands and feet and transfixed with arrows,, and the other a king. The former is probably St Sebastian, and the latter Henry VI. On the north side of the church are several good specimens of ancient sephulcral slabs, each bearing incised crosses with more or less elaboration. There was formerly a chantry in this church, founded by Henry, Earl of Lancaster, in the reign of Henry VI. It was endowed with forty-four burgages in various parts of the town, which in 1547 produced a renatal of £12 13s. 4d. At the suppression of chantries these tenements were granted to several individuals. The living is a vicarage worth £320 gross value, in the gift of the Duke of Northumberland, and held by the Rev. E.B. Trotter, M.A., rural dean and honorary canon of St. Nicholas's Cathedral. [Bulmer's History, Topography and Directory of Northumberland (1887), pp.684-5.]

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Townships

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Topography

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History

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The Parish Chest

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Non-Parochial Records

Alnwick Journal 15/9/1863 [death] At BROWNSVILLE, Texas, on the 3rd of May last, Benjamin, second son of the late Mr George Thew, leather merchant, formerly of Alnwick.

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Monumental Inscriptions

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