Церковь Святой Марии Редклифф: Величие английской готики.

The Church of St Mary the Virgin, widely known as St Mary Redcliffe, is the main Church of England parish church for the Redcliffe district of the city of Bristol, England. The first reference to a church on the site appears in 1158, with the present building dating from 1185 to 1872. The church is considered one of the country's finest and largest parish churches as well as an outstanding example of English Gothic architecture. The church is so large it is sometimes mistaken for Bristol Cathedral by tourists. The building has Grade I listed status, the highest possible category, by Historic England. The church is notable for its many large stained glass windows, decorative stone vaults, flying buttresses, rare hexagonal porch and massive Gothic spire. With a height of 274 feet (84 m) to the top of the weathervane, St Mary Redcliffe is the second tallest structure in Bristol and the sixth tallest parish church in the country. The church spire is a major Bristol landmark, visible from across the city and until the completion of Castle Park View in 2020, it was the tallest structure ever to have been erected in Bristol. St Mary Redcliffe has received widespread critical acclaim from various architects, historians, poets, writers and monarchs. Queen Elizabeth I, on a visit to the church in 1574, described St Mary Redcliffe as "The fairest, goodliest and most famous parish church in England"; Simon Jenkins gives St Mary Redcliffe the maximum five star rating in his book 'England's Thousand Best Churches', one of only eighteen to receive such a rating, describing it as a "masterpiece of English Gothic"; and Nikolaus Pevsner says that "St Mary Redcliffe need not fear comparison with any other English parish church".

Though some sources claim a church has been on the site since Saxon times, no such church is recorded in the Domesday Book, meaning that if a church existed, it had been demolished by 1086.

In 1185, a new north porch was constructed in the Early English Gothic style of the Purbeck subtype, similar to the new east end of Canterbury Cathedral, making this one of the earliest Gothic constructions in England, Canterbury being the earliest. This began in 1294 with the construction of the massive northwest tower base and part of the present west wall. It is unknown whether any damage was caused by the fall of the spire, though it is reported. If the wind had been from the southwest, the spire would have fallen onto the north porches, which show no sign of damage or alteration. William Worcestre's 1480 inventory states: "the height of the tower of Redcliffe contains 300 feet, of which 100 feet have been thrown down by lightning". The spire was not rebuilt following the strike; work instead continued to the nave and crossing, completed in c. 1480. The crossing vault bears similarities to that at Salisbury Cathedral, dated to 1479, which given the close relationship between the two churches, likely inspired that at Redcliffe. The work to complete the nave at Redcliffe was largely financed by the Canynges family, who had worked to rebuild the church since the early 14th century.

Like many churches in England, substantial damage was done to the internal fittings in the 16th and 17th centuries. During 1547, the chantry chapels were dissolved, including those founded at the end of the 15th century by William Canynges. The crown confiscated plates, lamps, vestments and service books. The rood screen was destroyed in 1548.

In 1763, the chapel of the Holy Spirit, as well as the Churchyard Cross, were both demolished. The chapel of the Holy Spirit was a freestanding building constructed in the mid 13th century by Henry Tussun, who was Prebendary at nearby Bedminster. The chapel stood a short distance southwest of the present tower, and was used as the parish church whilst the present building was under construction. Queen Elizabeth later gave it to the parishioners for use as a grammar school but it fell into disuse. Demolition lasted until 1766.) was designed and overseen by architect George Godwin. The church did however come very close to more significant destruction on Good Friday in 1941, when a bomb dropped on a nearby street threw shrapnel, including a large chunk of tram rail, into the churchyard. The tram rail, which has been left there to this day, is partially embedded in the ground with the force of the explosion and serves to remind local residents of how close the church came to destruction. In the 1960s, the present vivid stained glass windows in the Lady Chapel were installed and designed by Harry Stammers, and at the same time, £150,000 was spent between 1960 and 1965 on cleaning the external stonework. The organ has undergone a significant restoration by its original builders, Harrison and Harrison, and some stained glass commemorating the Royal African Company was removed in June 2020 following the removal of the Statue of Edward Colston on June 7. The south nave aisle and lady chapel roofs have been renewed. A project to celebrate the 450th anniversary of the visit of Elizabeth I in 2024 is underway to make the church more suitable for hosting tourists, events and for supporting the community. In 2016, an architectural competition was run by the church to design a new welcome centre with fresh and modern facilities; the contest was won by Purcell, who received the contract to design the work. Part of the work includes the pedestrianisation of Redcliffe Way, the dual carriageway which runs past the north side of the church. As of 2023, Purcell have departed ways with the church, with Northern Irish architects Hall McKnight taking over the project. No construction work has so far taken place.

The church has a traditional cruciform plan, with northwest tower, nave, transepts and chancel, as is common with many parish churches in England. across the transepts from north to south, giving it an area of 1,916 square metres (20,620 sq ft). The footprint of the church is amongst the largest of any church in England when cathedrals and other former monastic structures such as Bath Abbey are excluded, after only Great Yarmouth Minster (2,752 sq m), Hull Minster (2,473 sq m), Boston Stump (2,417 sq m) and Newark on Trent (2,010 sq m).

The dominant feature of the church's exterior is the highly decorative and imposing northwest tower, capped by an extremely tall and slender spire. The second stage has a large row of four blind arcades filled with niches containing 19th century replicas of the original statues, above which are large four light windows. The upper stage contains the Chatterton Room, and is a low room lit by rows of mullion windows. The parapet has open quatrefoils and is reached by an octagonal stair turret in the southeast corner. In 1847, the committee awarded the contract for its design and implementation to William Wailes of Newcastle upon Tyne, one of the most prolific stained glass designers of the 19th century, who estimated the cost at £330. This window was replaced in 1904 by a design by Clayton & Bell; Wailes' window being destroyed. As of 2023, the church has a mixture of stained glass and clear glass, with mostly Victorian work in the east end, and clear glass in the clerestory windows of the nave. From 1910 to 1912, organ builders Harrison & Harrison of Durham built and installed a brand new organ for the church, incorporating a small amount of the old pipework. The new organ was much larger, and due to space constraints had to be split between the north and south walls of the chancel. A new stone chamber for the Swell Organ was built in the angle between the north transept and north chancel aisle. The Great Organ was placed on the north side of the chancel with the remaining parts on the south; the console being placed to the west, near the north transept. This organ had more than twice as many stops as the previous organs, a total of 68 as installed. In 1941, the Swell Organ was affected by fire and bomb damage and had to be rebuilt in 1947 by Harrison & Harrison with additional pipes. The organ was cleaned and overhauled in 1974 and 1990 with tonal alterations, new equipment and additional stops; two stops were also removed. The 1990 work was never completely satisfactory, and so when the organ approached its next restoration in the early 2000s, a part of the project involved correcting errors from the 1990 overhaul. making it amongst the largest organs in Southern England. The organ is very well thought of for the quality of its tone, ranking amongst the finest organs in the country.

The earliest record of bells at Redcliffe is in 1480, where a very large peal of six are recorded. The founders were not known, as only the number of bells was recorded by William Worcestre. It is known from the churchwarden’s accounts, that the 4th bell was recast by William Jeffers in 1572, and the 5th and 6th by Roger Purdue in 1622. Purdue’s tenor was recorded as weighing 42 long hundredweight (cwt) 0 qrs 27 lbs (2,150 kg or 4,731 lb). In 1698, Abel Rudhall of Gloucester augmented the ring of six to eight with two new treble bells. No further work is recorded until 1763, when Thomas Bilbie recast the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th of the eight. The Bilbie family, like the Purdue family, were a prolific West Country foundry; 734 of their bells survive today. Curiously, Bilbie had to guarantee the recast bells were at least as heavy as the bells they replaced; if they were not, he had to pay 1 shilling per pound of reduced metal.

In 1823, the bells were augmented to ten with two trebles cast by Thomas Mears II of Whitechapel, though the first peal on the ten would not follow until 1835. The bells were augmented to twelve in 1872 by Mears’ successors, Mears & Stainbank. The augmented bells were the third ring of twelve in the West Country, following Cirencester in 1722 and Painswick in 1821, and the 25th ring of twelve in the country. The bells, the frame and the fittings left Bristol for Loughborough in the early months of 1903. The bells were all weighed upon their arrival, where the tenor was found to be only 39 long cwt (4,368 kg), over half a tonne lighter than reputed, which then explained how the peal in 1899 was faster than many thought possible. The lightest seven and the tenor bell were broken up and recast with additional metal, and the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th bells had their canons (ornamental loops of bell metal previously used for attaching bells to their headstocks) removed. The bells were also retuned, the combined action of both removing the canons and retuning reducing the weight of each of these four bells by approximately 2 long cwt (225 kg). The 9th bell, however, for a reason that is unknown was recast later in the same year; according to legend this is because the railway company dropped the 9th on the return to Bristol, and it had to be recast. The logbook housed in the archives at John Taylor & Co's Loughborough foundry shows the arrival weight and post tuning weights of the former 9th crossed through and a new, heavier weight recorded underneath. When the bells were installed, the new heavier tenor, which weighed 50 long cwt 2 qrs 21 lbs (5,677 lb or 2,575 kg), These new ball bearings no longer required regular greasing, unlike the old plain type of bearings and were also self aligning.