St Alkmund’s, Shrewsbury

"High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam, islanded in Severn stream", wrote Housman.

St Alkmund’s spire, which is situated on the town’s highest point, also has a particularly tall tower at 184 feet. It was built in the 1470s, but the rest of the building appears to be late eighteenth or early nineteenth-century, built in a sympathetic gothic style. Yet the foundation is much older: on account of the paganism and violence offered in and around Derby (make of that what you will) from Danish incursions, Æthelflæd or Aethelfleda, Lady of the Mercians, and daughter of Alfred the Great, arranged for the church to be built in the safety of the Severn’s compass. This lady is perhaps the most famous Saxon woman, and received favourable treatment in Bernard Cornwell’s Last Kingdom books and TV Netflix series franchises. Even today, the church is hemmed in by narrow lanes and timbered houses, as though nothing has really changed since the time of its tower’s erection.

It is remarkable to think that in 2012, it celebrated its 1100th anniversary having been founded by the lady in 912. Although some of the stained-glass windows are theologically suspect, one in particular caught my attention. Instead of depicting Saxon queens and medieval saints, it shows Abraham, Isaiah and Jacob. And what have these three in common?

-They all saw Christ before His incarnation.

I hope that in 1100 years, a great many besides also saw Him, albeit through faith’s squinting vision. That same Lord Jesus who appeared to the Hebrew fathers and seers also comes to men and women today, though few have the time and inclination to focus and then receive Him.

Wisdom calls aloud outside;
She raises her voice in the open squares.
She cries out in the chief concourses,
At the openings of the gates in the city
She speaks her words:
“How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity?
For scorners delight in their scorning,
And fools hate knowledge.
Turn at my rebuke;
Surely I will pour out my spirit on you... Proverbs 1:20-23