Spotlight On...Tong Church, the "Westminster Abbey of the Midlands"
A gorgeous gem with connections to Henry V, Richard III, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
Croeso (or Welcome), to another edition of ‘A Chronicle of Dragons & Cats’, and thank you for reading! If you have already subscribed, diolch yn fawr for coming along on this journey and I hope you’re enjoying. Any likes, comments and shares are always appreciated. It’s not easy getting history out to the masses at the moment!
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On to today’s post…
Anyone who has travelled through Shropshire and pulled off the M54 headed for Newport and Whitchurch will have raced past the enchanting Tong Church, even if they didn’t know it was called Tong Church. Or, technically, the Collegiate Church of St Bartholomew’s in Tong. Like all modern pilgrims as we interweave through the various places we fleetingly pass, I often wonder about those gems I briefly catch a glimpse of, and wonder about their story.
Well, on one such trip recently I decided during the return leg I just needed to find out about this church that I passed on the way up. My inclination was that it was fifteenth century and might just hold some treasures of interest.
And so, on a surprisingly balmy and sunny Sunday afternoon recently, I suddenly found myself spontaneously clicking the indicator on my van and taking a sharp left off the main thoroughfare I was on, confusing my Google Maps SatNav with this sudden unexplained detour and bringing things to halt up a narrow country lane. Welcome to Tong.
Now, this wasn’t my first time stopping off at a rural church, and truth be told I expected, as usual, to be met by a firmly bolted heavy wooden door. But it seemed that my arrival coincided with the end of Sunday service, with many pensioners in their best clothes beginning to make their way towards the row of cars that, like mine, lined this country lane.
Taking in the view that greeted me, I could see that St Bartholomew’s most certainly had a medieval air about it, namely a gothic perpendicular design with a roof featuring battlements, pinnacles and gargoyles. Built from a reddish local sandstone, its unusual central crossing tower, which involves a rectangular base upon which rests an octagonal structure topped with a spire, certainly demands attention. What also caught my eye as I stretched my legs, however, was a small ruinous wall to the west of the church that hinted at a medieval story to tell. Quickly falling upon the first information board of many, my hunches were confirmed, and excitingly, there were even connections with the Beauforts and Henry VII, both of which I’d hope you reading at home know I’ve written extensively about.
So, the story that I was able to glean from various sources is that this particularly ornate church has stood here in the centre of the village of Tong for more than six hundred years, though the settlement itself dates back to at least the reign of William the Conqueror, who granted land here to his cousin Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury. This Montgomery established a castle here which stood in various guises until as recent as 1954, and probably also an earlier and simpler church.
The lordship of Tong passed in turn to each of Montgomery’s sons, and thereafter across the subsequent centuries to the de Belmeis family, then the Zouches and then by 1271 to the Pembridges. The last of this latter line was a Shropshire parliamentarian named Sir Fulk de Pembridge, a man who owned estates in nine countries and who event went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1364. After this, Pembridge updated his crest to show a Saracen’s head with long plaits of hair and he was knighted upon his return home. Sir Fulk died on 24 May 1409 without issue.
The beautiful church that greets the modern visitor owes its origins to Sir Fulk’s bereaved widow Isabel Lingen of Wigmore. After her husband’s death, Isabel obtained the advowson of the church from Shrewsbury Abbey, allowing her to nominate priests of her own selection, then petitioned King Henry IV to grant her permission to found and endow a collegiate church, a place where said priests would daily say masses for the souls of the three husbands which had predeceased her, most recently Sir Fulk. King Henry agreed to grant Isabel a royal licence in November 1410, though not before he added to the list of beneficiaries for whom masses would be said, at the forefront of which were to be himself and then his half-brother, Thomas Beaufort. Henry V would later add to the list of souls for whom masses were to be said at Tong, including himself and another of his Beaufort uncles, Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester.
Work quickly began after the licence was granted, and the college came to consist of a warden, five chaplains, two clerks and thirteen disabled almsmen. One of the ruinous walls seen to the west of the church is the sole remnant of the erstwhile almshouse which once stood here. The manor and lordship of Tong passed to Sir Fulk’s great nephew Sir Richard Vernon of Haddon, sometimes known as Richard Pembridge to show his familial connection, and both he and his wealthy heirs would likewise gave their patronage to the St Bartholomew’s Church.
Entering through the south porch and out of the glaring sun, the church features much of the architectural interior and plan one would expect from a medieval church as you stand in the rectangular nave, greeted by four sturdy supporting pillars that predate the Pembridge church, with the choir and the adjoining vestry located to the right. Immediately, however, as your eyes adjust to the darkness and you feel a chill on your skin from the sudden drop in temperature, you are helplessly drawn to the splendid array of a series of remarkably well-preserved fifteenth and early sixteenth century alabaster tombs that litter the central crossing. This is not just a mere parish church with an interesting origin story, but rather an exquisite family mausoleum.
Now, considering it was erected after the demise of Sir Fulk Pembridge (d.1409), it should not be too surprising to learn the earliest tomb here belongs to that of the knight and his wife, the foundress Lady Isabel (d.1446). Standing under the northern crossing arch between the pulpit and the choir, this tomb depicts armoured husband and wife side-by-side, their hands clasped in prayer. If you look close enough, there is still some of the original black paint on the widow clothing Isabel is shown wearing. More interestingly, around her head lays a chaplet of roses, a long-held tradition in which a fresh one is placed there each Midsummer’s Day.
Beneath the southern crossing arch is the equally astonishing and incredibly detailed double effigy belonging to Sir Richard Vernon (d.1451), a veteran of Henry V’s French wars who was at various times a speaker of the House of Commons, deputy justiciar of South Wales, and Treasurer of Calais, and his wife Benedicta of Ludlow. Note the series of apostles and angels bearing shields on the tomb chest, and how the armour-clad Richard’s head rests upon a boar, his family’s crest. As a soldier, the knight is shown wearing a sword belt, with only the sword hilt remaining, as well as the Lancastrian SS collar. Incidentally, Benedicta was also the daughter of Isabel de Lingen from one of the latter’s earlier marriages.
Of personal note, Richard was the son of Joan ferch Rhys of Llansadwrn in Carmarthenshire, which is basically where I was born, raised and where my maternal family have been imbedded for at least four hundred years. Maybe I am a very distant cousin of Sir Richard.
Further into the nave lies the effigy-less tomb of Richard’s heir Sir William Vernon (d.1467), a knight constable of England during the reign of Henry VI, and his wife Margaret. This Sir William succeeded his father as a treasurer of Calais, was involved in helping suppress the rebellion of Jack Cade, and served as a member of parliament for Derbyshire and Staffordshire.
Another tomb near William’s belongs to another Richard Vernon (d.1517), who did not reach the heights of his forebears but is nevertheless commemorated. This last Vernon was married to, and indeed buried alongside, Margaret Dymoke, a lady-in-waiting at the Tudor court whose father Sir Robert Dymoke held the hereditary post of King’s Champion. The elder Dymoke had interestingly served in this position for both Richard III and Henry VII’s coronations. Margaret herself (then known as Mistress Cosyn or Coffin after a later marriage) was one of five women who served Anne Boleyn in the Tower of London after her imprisonment.
The jewel in Tong’s crown, however, is the vividly decorated chantry chapel that was not added to the church until 1510, likely completed within the next decade. This charming addition, entered through a doorway in the south aisle, owes its foundation to Sir Henry Vernon, who seems to have taken inspiration from the mighty fan vaulted ceiling of Henry VII’s Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey. The five pendants were once painted red and green and gilded with gold leaf, giving rise to the chantry being known as the Golden Chapel, whilst the remnants of the original paint can still be seen on the wall facing inwards towards the rest of the church which bears a series of canopied niches.
This Vernon was a well-known and highly regarded figure in the later fifteenth century, known to have communicated with Warwick the Kingmaker during his rebellion and then serving as an esquire of the body to both Edward IV and Richard III. He was known to be present during the latter’s unexpected coronation in July 1483. Vernon navigated the Wars of the Roses with great dexterity that ensured he was not viewed as a conspicuous partisan to either side, which would stand him in good stead during the advent of Henry Tudor.
Just eleven days before the Battle of Bosworth, the very day he learned his enemy had landed in Wales, Richard III issued a terse summons to Vernon to raise and bring his men, ‘sufficiently horsed and harnessed’, ready to fight the Tudor invader, and ‘in all haste possible’. Richard added that if his command wasn’t obeyed ‘without failing, all manner excuses set apart’, then Vernon would face not only confiscation of his lands and death. Vernon doesn’t appear to have moved, but fortunately for him, Richard did not return from battle to wage his vengeance.
Like many other Yorkists, Vernon was quickly reconciled to the new Tudor regime, even receiving a similar royal summons just two months later from Henry VII requesting he raise men to help suppress a northern rebellion led by the shadowy figures of Robin of Redesdale and Master Mend-all. Likewise, Vernon would defend the crown in battle at Stoke Field in the summer of 1487.
In fact, Vernon soon rose in service under Henry VII, receiving a letter from the king in April 1492 advising him that on account of the ‘singular trust that we have in your approved truth and wisdom’, he was being appointed Comptroller of Prince Arthur’s Household at Ludlow, a position of considerable trust and significance. It is possible that the prince spent time at Vernon’s main residence at Haddon Hall and also in Tong Castle itself. He would also be a witness to the marriage contract between Arthur and Katherine of Aragon. If the Tudor prince had lived to inherit the throne, Sir Henry would have been among the first in line for lavish reward and patronage, with national influence and prominence. Alas. Elsewhere, Vernon was also one of the royal party the king entrusted to accompany his young daughter Princess Margaret into Scotland for her marriage to the King of Scots.
Appropriately regarding the reasonable heights he did rise in royal service, Sir Henry’s effigy, in stone rather than alabaster, proudly depicts him wearing the Lancastrian SS collar, and he is shown next to his wife Anne Talbot, a lady of noble bearing as the daughter of the 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury. Upon one of the walls stand a resplendent bust of their book-holding son Arthur Vernon, who died in 1517.
This collection of fifteenth and early sixteenth century Pembridge and Vernon family tombs have prompted some to even grandly describe St Bartholomew’s as ‘The Westminster Abbey of the Midlands’. It’s lofty praise that I’m sure some other regionally significant churches may take issue with, but Tong is certainly special.
The collegiate college would be closed during the Reformation, with Henry VIII’s commissioners authorized to seize control and later oversee the sale of the estate. In subsequent centuries the almhouses would fall into disrepair and be demolished, but the church remained standing, periodically undergoing repairs and restoration where required.
There are two literary connections with Tong that may be of interest to the visitor. A resplendent early seventeenth century double-decker memorial stands in the south aisle which commemorates Sir Thomas Stanley and his wife Margaret Vernon on one level and their son Edward Stanley (d.1632), the last Vernon-blooded lord of Tong, beneath. A pair of epitaphs written on this tomb were reputedly done by none other than William Shakespeare himself, who had connections with the Stanleys. Incidentally, these Stanleys were indeed direct descendants of the Thomas Stanley who helped swing the day for Henry VII at the Battle of Bosworth.
Charles Dickens, meanwhile, was inspired by Tong for the crescendo of his 1840 novel ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’, with the grave of the main character Little Nell described as being in the graveyard. This led to an enterprising verger in 1910 creating a false entry in the parish register fraudulently recording the purported burial of this fictional person, which has attracted visitors from far and wide. One on of the exterior walls near the south porch, meanwhile, are visible two cross engravings, which a friendly member of the congregation enthusiastically informed me were made by returning Crusaders – I’m not convinced, particularly since the church was founded much later than any crusades of note, but nonetheless I’m sure whoever was responsible has an interesting story to tell.
Fascinating post. Old churches hold so much history, and its amazing to see the actual faces of these characters.
The crosses are most likely to be "Masons' Marks" - traces left by the stonemasons. Or graffiti, of which there is plenty in old buildings. At National Trust Lyveden there was a team of volunteers dedicated to recording and researching graffiti on the old stonework.
You write of these things so well that my mind’s eye reproduces them. Thank you for being both entertaining and informative..