A real treat to explore at St. Mary’s, Thirsk Church Open day...

Last Saturday St. Mary’s C. of E. Parish Church had an open day to explore the building and learn its secrets and long history.

Every day visitors from around the world come and casually look around but this was a better chance to really see the medieval carvings and stained-glass windows, the doors and its long history up close.

Truly it proved to be a delightful few hours spent with a local historian and staff in a fascinating building still used for the community and for worship today and a gem of architecture long admired everywhere.

Locals pass it each day and rarely venture in and miss a real treat for all.

Its Perpendicular Gothic style is very picturesque and grand, showing the wealth of the medieval town.

On this day some intrepid explorers ventured up the narrow winding steps to the bell tower and admired the clock mechanism, wound it up for themselves, truly hard work, and carried on up to see the eight bells, including the 1410 tenor bell from Fountains Abbey, made in York by John Potter and bought at the Reformation for the town.

The bells are happily still rung often for services and for special occasions, and, in the past, the passing bell was rung for the death of individuals, one note for each year of life.

The one clock face only points to the town, a rare style.

Approaching the church everyone is struck by the large porch or Parvise with a classroom and accommodation for a hermit above, and the heavily grooved inner walls, possibly made by arrows or swords being sharpened or even used as peasant sacred medicine before a time of good doctors.

The church started off as a Saxon Minster and rebuilt as a Norman church, and then rebuilt in the fifteenth century in a much grander is style.

The eighty foot bell tower was designed taller still but never funded and the present height finally accepted.






















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