Description

BRISTOL

ST5872 COLLEGE GREEN
901-1/15/66 (North East side)
08/01/59 Church of St Mark, Lord Mayor's
Chapel

GV I

Church. 1230, south aisle added in 1270, tower in 1487,
chancel and south aisle chapel in 1500 and the Poyntz chapel
in 1523; roof of nave is early C16. N transept and W front
were rebuilt in the restoration of the chapel by JL Pearson in
1889.
MATERIALS: limestone stone ashlar and dressings, Pennant stone
ashlar and rubble.
PLAN: cruciform plan with tower over the E transept. Early
Decorated Gothic nave and S aisle, the rest Perpendicular
Gothic.
EXTERIOR: 6-light Tudor arch E window divided in 3 by king
mullions, with a hood and diamond stops; deep angle buttresses
with gable tops, linked by a canted drip, and parapet above
with crocketed pinnacles. N transept with diagonal buttresses
running into slender attached shafts, and a 6-light pointed
window. 1889 covered corridor beneath the N aisle on the site
of the original cloister, with paired cinquefoil windows with
mouchettes above between buttresses, beneath a roll-top
parapet, and a slate roof. 4-bay nave, stilted arches on
slender attached columns with 3 stepped lancets with trefoil
heads and pierced spandrels, linked by a continuous hood. A
crowded corbel table of various heads: grotesque, animal and
human.
The E window of the Poyntz chapel has an elliptical arch with
3 lights and angel hood stops, and a drip mould below the
parapet with large carved gargoyles and central angels, and
angle buttresses; the S elevation is 2 bays. Tudor-arched
8-light S chancel window with angel hood stops.
Tower of 2 stages, of alternate stripes of Pennant and Bath
ashlar as far as the first water table, and red sandstone
above, with Bath ashlar angle buttresses and flush windows;
Tudor-arched S doorway with a hood and panelled door; 2-light
window above with trefoil heads, and a lancet to base of
second stage and to 4 sides of the belfry, with fretted
stonework; drip with 2 animals holding shields on each side,
tall crenellated parapet and panelled pinnacles with crockets.
3-bay S aisle chapel with 4-light Tudor-arched windows with
angel stops, and buttresses between with attached pinnacles;
drip with clambering monkeys above the buttresses. The S aisle
is hidden by an adjacent building. Much restored W front has a
Geometric window with 8 lights and a rose, in a parapeted
gable with buttresses either side and sundial on the right;
the central doorway has 2 orders, with foliate caps and ball
flowers on the moulded archivolt; on either side are a 2-light
blind arches raised on a bench, all 3 are linked by a
hoodmould. Decorated 3-light S aisle window with stellar
tracery and chamfered reveals and foliate caps, all enriched
with small ball flowers.
INTERIOR: a very fine reredos of fretted tabernacle work
rebuilt for Bishop Salley c1500: three hemi-octagonal canopied
niches, the central one raised, with ogee arches to domed
cupolas and flanking buttresses on angel corbels, with image
stands and late C19 statues. Ogee-arched doorways to each side
with crocketed hoodmoulds, and panelled doors with carved
figures in niches. In between is a band of blind traceried
panel, a frieze of openwork vine leaves, and a row of empty
niches, and at the top a parapet of fretted stone with small
pinnacles. At the centre of the screen is an altar painting by
John King, 1829. Piscina and 4 sedilia in the same style, with
a parapet of shields.
The N transept arch of 2 orders with attached shafts and
deeply cut foliate capitals, the outer order stilted, the
inner continuing below the base to a head corbel; hoodmould to
a head stop. C19 arch to vestry has king and queen hood stops,
and a similar one to N corridor. The windows to N side of nave
have attached shafts to bell capitals; the lower part of the
window is blind; beneath is a sill band, interrupted by a
doorway at the W end. Very flat tie-beam roof with gilded
bosses and quatrefoil panels, and wall posts to angel corbels.
The S transept arch contains the organ loft. In the base of
the tower is door to stair turret, and 3 well-carved head
corbels.
The doorway to the Poyntz chapel has a Tudor arch with hollow
mouldings and carved spandrels with a clenched fist (poing), a
rebus of the founder; the top of the label mould is extended
out each side; the splayed reveals are decorated with
quatrefoil panels; at the E end are 2 richly carved canopies
and an altar piece in the same style as the chancel, with
slender image-stands with concave sides in the niches; 2
similar niches to the sides and at the W end, from which
spring a 2-bay fan vault in which the spandrels bear shields
of Sir Robert Poyntz and Henry VIII; in the N wall are 2
barrel-vaulted chambers with Tudor-arched doorways with
intersecting mouldings, and the floor has C16 Spanish tiles,
with a few English ones mixed in.
2-bay arcade to the S aisle has chamfered arches to an
octagonal shaft and foliate corbels; hoodmoulds to head stops,
and on S side of the shaft to head and shoulders of a bishop;
E window above S aisle chapel contains a surround of pierced
quatrefoils. 3-bay S aisle of blocked 2-light S windows with
cinquefoil heads and deep chamfered reveals. The entrance to S
aisle chapel has trefoil-headed panelled reveals, and an early
C18 wrought-iron gated screen; the chapel is linked to the
chancel by a squint, and has a canopied piscina and niches
between the windows in the style of the chancel; roof has
gilded bosses with Tudor roses.
FITTINGS: C19 choir stalls with poppy heads, pews with arms
and Lord Mayor's thrones with poppy heads and horses holding
shields either side at the front. Octagonal stone pulpit with
ogee niches and crocket finials to the arches and buttresses.
Sword rest of 1702 by William Edney, wrought-iron with gilded
leaves and monogram of Anna Regina. Stone font at W end of S
aisle, an octagonal shaft and flared basin.
MEMORIALS: chancel has a very fine dresser tomb of Bishop
Salley, d.1516, a recumbent effigy of the Bishop on a panelled
chest, beneath a richly carved ogee hood with pendant cusps
and open work parapet, in the style of the reredos, which was
the gift of the Bishop; to N is the dresser tomb to Sir
Maurice Berkeley d.1464, of a knight and his lady on a
panelled chest beneath an elaborate ogee hood with angels to
the cusps and large finials, with 2 painted shields held by
standing lions; restored by Salley and in same style as his
tomb.
Nave has an empty memorial niche in the N nave, a Tudor arch
with carved spandrels and trefoil panels beneath; memorial
tablet to Thomas Harris d.1797, by Thomas Paty, an oval slate
panel with a marble sarcophagus on animal feet, with finely
carved swag and an angel standing against a panel with a
relief head; beneath is a brass memorial tablet inscribed to
William Searchfield d.1647; fine dresser tomb to William Birde
d.1590; Elizabethan style, painted panels to the chest, 4
reeded, fluted Ionic columns to a richly carved canopy with
friezes of mermen, with a large shell pediment and shield,
flanked by terms; dresser tomb to Richard Berkeley d.1604 to S
of door, Classical style, a recumbent figure on a panelled
chest, with a Corinthian aedicule with marble shafts, carrying
an epitaph.
S aisle has a wall monument to Thomas James d.1619, a painted
stone aedicule on brackets with Corinthian shafts and a broken
pediment, containing a kneeling figure within an arch; marble
wall monument to Henry Bengough d.1818 by F Chantry, signed
and dated 1828: a full-size seated figure over a plinth; large
wall monument to William Hilliard, d.1735, by Thomas Paty,
with a rusticated base with a semicircular-arched doorway
beneath 3 pedestals, the side pair with putti and central one
bearing a black marble sarcophagus with a bust on top; behind
is a pediment with drapes, and a tall slate obelisk above;
chest tomb of a merchant c1360, Perpendicular Gothic style
with traceried panels, a recumbent man within an ogee arch and
elaborate finial, a rare example of a C14 monument with a
figure in civilian costume; marble wall monument to John
Cookin d.1627 aged 11, an alabaster aedicule on pendant
brackets with Corinthian capitals and a flat hood, containing
a kneeling figure of a boy with a book; marble wall tablet to
Catherine Vaughan d.1694, oval with a cartouche above; marble
wall tablet to Henry Walter d.1737, an aedicule with fluted
pilasters and Corinthian capitals and a swan-neck pediment
containing a cartouche, with an apron of cherubs' heads;
beneath it a C16 section of painted wall panel, and beneath
that, a chest tomb with 5 heraldic quatrefoil panels.
S aisle chapel has a dresser tomb of Maurice de Gaunt d.1230
and Robert de Gourney d.1269, 2 knights, the founders of the
Hospital of St Mark's; the effigy of de Gaunt is a vigorously
lifelike carving; dresser tomb to George Upton d.1608,
Jacobean style, a wide aedicule with Corinthian capitals and a
dentil cornice, with a recumbent effigy leaning on one elbow
beneath an arch backed by a decorated panel with glass
roundels, beneath a rounded moulding with swag; painted stone
wall monument to William Swift d.1622, an aedicule with dentil
cornice and round arch containing a kneeling figure in
civilian dress, and a cartouche above; a large marble wall
memorial to Sir Baynham Throckmorton and wife, 1635, a wide
plinth with columns with Corinthian capital bearing a flat
canopy, with heraldic shield in panel with broken segmental
pediment, over are a recumbent couple, he in armour and she
leaning half upright against the wall with a baby, backed by a
keyed inscription flanked by pair of headless figures in
classical drapes; wall monument to John Aldworth d.1625 and
his son Francis d.1623, Perpendicular Gothic style, a
traceried panelled plinth with octagonal shafts bearing a
canopy with quatrefoils, and a parapet of foliage interupted
by pinnacles, over 2 kneeling men; above this a wall monument
of foliate side panels and a coffered arch, with a kneeling
woman inside and an apron with a winged skull. In the E end is
a large wall monument to Dame Mary Baynton d.1677 and her 2
sons: Baroque style, an expressive tryptych of the 2 men
kneeling on pedestals hold drapes from a baldacchino above
their mother, kneeling in a niche; behind the men is a
Corinthian aedicule with a broken pediment and 2 obelisks, and
beneath each are term brackets and an apron.
STAINED GLASS: good quality and quantity, though not original,
much was bought by the Corporation at the sale of Fonthill in
1823: second window in N aisle from Ecouen, 1550; E window 2
French saints, C15; in Poyntz chapel are 3 roundels of C15; E
window of S aisle of Thomas a Becket from Fonthill; S aisle
chapel has 24 German and Flemish roundels of C16 and C17.
HISTORICAL NOTE: the chapel is the only surviving part of the
Hospital of St Mark, founded in 1220. It was granted to the
Corporation of Bristol in 1539. The original W window was
removed and re-erected at Ridgeway, Westbury, in 1822. Until
its restoration in 1889, carved screens and arcades of a style
similar to the reredos extended along the sides of the nave
and in front of the entrance. The Poyntz chantry chapel,
uncompleted in 1520 on the death of Sir Robert Poyntz of Iron
Acton, is a very fine example of late Perpendicular Gothic.
The magnificent sequence of monuments forms an important
element of the interior.
(The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and
Bristol: London: 1958-: 392-395; Ralph E and Evans H: St
Mark's, The Lord Mayor's Chapel, Bristol: Bristol: 1979-;
Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectual
History: London: 1979-: 23,37,66,70-1,80,).

Listing NGR: ST5838772834

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• St Mark's Church, Bristol at Wikipedia
• St Mark's Church, Bristol official website
• Wikidata Q7594149

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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