Stow Minster

Stow Minister in the village of Stow-in-Lindsey, Lincolnshire, is one of the largest and oldest parish churches in the country. Still largely Saxon and Norman, one sees everywhere those perfectly rounded arches which both peoples were pleased to construct. When other parish churches deemed them terribly old fashioned and replaced them with pointed gothic, the authorities of Stow remained steadfastly proud of their simpler, rounded styles (below and above). The earliest carving of a Viking long boat has already been noted, as well as my known ancestors who considered this old church their place of worship.

The whole edifice is characterised by solidity, vastness and vintage. Unlike many other English churches in large towns and cities (such as Hull and Leeds) which call themselves ‘minsters’ as though it were a runner-up prize for having not been made a cathedral, Stow is a genuine one. The Old English mynster was regarded as a mother church, a kind of superior establishment for having sent out workers and missionaries to evangelise the district and establish new places of worship in its wider locale.

Although we at Salem Chapel have started a congregation in the Yorkshire Dales and are prayerfully considering another in Burnley or Pendle afore long, few will ever describe our church as Martin Top Minster. Yet all churches ought to be mother churches, inasmuch as they espy localities with little or no evangelical witness and seek to plant there, no matter how stony the ground. As the land re-paganises, many more lessons might be learned from our Anglo-Saxon forbears.

Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, which is the place that thou hast prepared, O Lord, for to dwell in, even the sanctuary, O Lord, which thine hands shall establish. Exodus 15:17, Geneva Bible