Middleton St Mary's Church
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The Anglican Parish church, dedicated to St Mary the Virgin, is served by Rev'd Riaz Mubarak of The Rectory, West Winch, tel. 840835 (along with the neighbouring
parishes in the Benefice – of North Runcton and West Winch), and is managed by
the Middleton Parochial Church Council. Services are held on most Sunday
mornings – and are detailed, along with other community events, on notice-boards
and in the Parish Magazine.
The church stands at the village centre, by the
junction between the A47 main highway and Station Road, and across the way from
School Road and ‘The Crown’ Inn. A church has stood at this site for many
centuries – the first recorded vicar served from 1191, but the beginnings date
back into Saxon times, perhaps three-hundred years or so before that.
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The building was begun in the 13th Century, and is in the Early English style.
The walls and square turreted bell tower are constructed in local carrstone,
reinforced with stone quoins at their corners, in the buttresses, door-frames
and around the windows. Later modifications were made in the Perpendicular
style, including the chancel and the windows and arcade piers in the aisles; and
major restorations were made in the 19th Century. The clock on the south side of
the tower was installed in 1897 to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee;
in 2008 the clock was repaired, repainted and regilded by the original Derby
manufacturers. |
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Amongst the church’s fine stained-glass are medieval fragments of the de Scales
family arms, and two early-20th Century medieval pastiches. Memorials include
tablets to Major Everard-Hutton of the 4th Light Dragoons, who survived the
‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ at Balaclava years before, and to his two sons who
died in infancy. |
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Memorial to parishioners who died serving in the First World War
The stump of the old Market Cross |
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