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St Mary's on the HillSt Mary's Hill Chester CH1 2DW |
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St Mary's is situated on top of a Hill behind the castle. It is one of the nine original medieval parish churches. It is in the Perpendicular style dating from the 14th and 15th centuries. The church contains many fine memorials. St Mary's Centre is now owned by the County Council and is not normally open. It was the old parish church of St Mary on the hill.
The church was given to the abbot of St Werburgh's by Ranulph the forth Earl of Chester. The roof is supposed to come from Basingwerke Abbey in Flintshire after its dissolution in 1536.
A young Sir Francis Gamul depicted reading on the family tomb in St Mary's.
Memorials
If you walk down St Marys Hill to Shipgate Street. You can access Bridge Street.
Click on the picture for more information.
If you walk up St Mary's Hill you can access Chester Crown Courts and Chester Castle. Click on the picture for more information.
The graveyard of St Mary's was used to bury execution victims from the near by Castle.
The following entries appear in the parish records :
1631 - 'Thomas Laceby, a prisoner, pressed to death, buried in the churchyard on the north side of the steeple on the 23rd day of April. John Johnson, Joan Broome and Katherine Crosse, three persons that were executed, buried at the west end of the steeple in the churchyard the 25th day of April'.
1656 'Three witches hanged at Michaelmas Assizes, buried in the corner by the Castle Ditch in the churchyard 8th of October'.
Donations 