OLD DEVONPORT . UK
 www.olddevonport.uk
 
©  Brian Moseley, Plymouth
Webpage created: February 04, 2016.
Webpage updated: March 18, 2017

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ANGLICAN CHURCH OF SAINT MARY

So narrow were the streets it was very difficult
to get a photograph of Saint Mary's Church.
Messrs Hood and Company, of Middlesex managed it, however.
The letterbox and lamp were in James Street.
From a postcard.

The Anglican Church of Saint Mary was situated in James Street, Devonport.  It no longer exists.

This ecclesiastical parish was created on Thursday August 27th 1846* from the civil parish of Stoke Damerel. 

The foundation stone of the Church was laid on Easter Tuesday, 1850, by Mr E Saint Aubyn.  The building was of stone built in the Middle Pointed style.  It cost £6,000 to erect and was designed by Mr J Piers Saint Aubyn. 

Saint Mary's Church was consecrated on Tuesday June 15th 1852. 

It consisted of a chancel, nave, aisles, south porch and a tower with spire, at the south-west angle.  The tower was 150 ft in height and contained one bell.   The nave was separated from the aisles by an arcade, supported on shafts of black marble from Levant, in Cornwall.  The west window was a memorial to the Reverend Alfred Swain, the second vicar of the Church.  When built it could accommodate a congregation of 800, all free and unappropriated.

The organ was rebuilt in 1913.

Strenuous efforts were made in 1956 to save the Church from demolition but in February 1958 it was announced that it would be demolished and the parish merged with that of Saint Aubyn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

*  Kelly's directories quotes September 22nd 1846.