Stoke Minster - Part One

Stoke Minster, formerly the church of St Peter ad Vincula, became Stoke Minster in 2005 and stands on Glebe Street opposite the Kings Hall and present Civic Centre in the town of Stoke.   Stoke is one of the six towns which make up the city of Stoke-on-Trent the others being Hanley which is the city centre, Burslem known as the Mother town, Tunstall, Fenton and Longton.

The church we see now was designed by James Trubshaw and built in 1826 but there have been earlier churches on this site

The first church was a wooden building founded in the 7th century, the first stone church was built around 805 and this was altered and added to over the years the chancel being completely rebuilt in the 13th century.

In the churchyard is the remains of a Saxon Cross which dates from the 8th century

Close by are the tombs of the Spode family whose factory premises still stand in the centre of Stoke.  The tomb on the left is the resting place of Josiah Spode I and his wife Ellen.  This Josiah was credited with the introduction of underglaze blue transfer printing and the using of bone ash to make bone china.

In the churchyard are also the remains of the older stone building.  The arches below were reassembled in the 1880s with stones from the Saxon church which were found in the water course of Boothen Mill.  The inscription on the stones above reads  'site of the altar and sanctuary of the ancient church'

Behind the arches you can see the iron railings which protect the very plain resting place of the great potter Josiah Wedgwood I.  He was buried at the  entrance of the earlier church - demolished in 1829 - as he was a non conformist and not a member of the Church of England.

In complete contrast to the simplicity of Wedgwood's stone that of Herbert Stansfield, late of Middlewich is decorated with an elaborate carving of the coat of arms of the Free Masons and other masonic symbols.

If you read my last post you will remember the memorial inscription below to Sibil and Henry Clarke who both, according to the stone mason,  appear to have lived to the age of 112.  I couldn't just leave this and had to follow up with a bit of research.

I looked at microfiche of the Parish Registers transcribed by the Staffordshire Parish Registers Society in 1914, edited by Percy W L Adams from Wolstanton.  Using the index I found references to Clark, Clarke, Clerk and Clerke and looked at them all on the fiche for 1629 to 1688. 

I found the entry for the burial of Sibil Clarke as Sibylla Clerk on 24th December 1684,  with a note in brackets added by the editor referring to her age on the gravestone.   I looked at the other references to the variations on the Clark name and found two children born to Henry and Sibil Clarke  as follows:-

16th June 1633 - Elizabeth, fil Henrici Clerke and Sibilla

and 15th October 1636  Henricus f Henrici Clerke and Sibilla

If Sibil was 112 in 1684 she would have been born in 1572 so in 1633 she would have been around 61 and in 1636 she would have been 64!  Using the 1914 index I couldn't find a marriage recorded for Henry and Sibil in the registers, they could have been married elsewhere of course, also I couldn't find a burial for Henry.  He did crop up one more time in the registers in 1674 when he was mentioned in a year end report as joint finance officer with an Isaac Key.  Although that Henry could, of course, by then have been Henry the son of Henry and Sibil Clarke.  I think by looking at the parish registers I've raised even more questions than I had before but if the Sybil and Henry Clarke mentioned in the registers are the ones recorded on the gravestone then there is no way they could have been aged 112.  It's unlikely that there was another Henry and Sibil Clarke not mentioned in the registers so it seems to me that the ages on the gravestone are probably not true. 

Right, after all that I'm off to watch Inspector Montalbano.
Have a great rest of the weekend