Church spotlight: Shrewsbury Abbey

To the 30,000 visitors who pour through its doors every year, the building is a place steeped in history, the last vestige of what was once one of the most important and influential abbeys in England, the place where the House of Commons sat for the first time.

But to Rev Paul Firmin, and his 150-strong congregation, it is first and foremost their local parish church, as well as a focus for civic activity within the town.

• Established in 1083 by Roger de Montgomery

• Capacity: 500

• Main services: 10am Sunday (with the Abbey Choir), 12pm Wednesdays

• In 1909 concern over the safety of the tower led to the bells being removed and rehung without wheels in a new frame. They are now controlled by a device which allows them to be rung by a single operator.

• The Abbey’s organ was built in 1911 by William Hill and Son. It was designed to be on the scale of a cathedral organ, but lack of funds meant it was never completed

• The Abbey was dissolved on January 24, 1540, with a pension of £80 assigned to the abbot and £87 6s 8d to the 17 monks

• St Winifred and Robert of Shrewsbury are presumed to be buried at the church[/breakout]

"We have a strong musical tradition," he says.

"The monks would have sung services for 450 years, and today we have a robed choir which sings in a traditional soprano/alto/tenor/bass manner.

"We have regular concerts, from May to September, which are free every Wednesday at 1pm, and feature a wide range of artists.

"We also have one-off concerts and the next one will be very special, The Midland Festival Orchestra, on June 13."

For centuries the church was a centre of political intrigue, and the fact that Henry VIII allowed the building to survive his infamous Dissolution Act is a subject of some fascination for visitors.

The site has been used for worship since Saxon times, with a wooden church dedicated to St Peter, and possibly a small monastery, recorded in the Domesday Book.

It was the priest of this church, on his way back from a pilgrimage in Rome, who persuaded the new Earl of Shrewsbury, Roger de Montgomery, to raise St Peter's into a grand abbey. Roger had two monks brought from his lands in Sées, Normandy, to direct the building arrangements and monastic life was established four years later.

Though the Abbey flourished, during the early 12th century the monks of Shrewsbury apparently felt their monastery incomplete for the lack of the relics of a special patron to honour and bring glory to the name of God – not to mention lucrative offerings from vast hoards of pilgrims.

The Prior, Robert Pennant, therefore took it upon himself to find a suitable candidate whose remains he might appropriate for his abbey church. With the abbot's blessing, he led an expedition into Wales where, in 1138, he acquired the bones of St Gwenfrewi from the inhabitants of Gwytherin in Gwynedd.

Known as St Winifred to the English, she was brought back to Shrewsbury and enshrined, probably behind the high altar, with great ceremony.

Her presence turned Shrewsbury into a major pilgrimage centre, and raised the profile of the abbots who became increasingly powerful, serving as magistrates, jailers of important hostages, and from the 13th century onwards they also sat in parliament.

In those days, the parliament moved around the country and met at important sites, chosen by the King of the time according to where he happened to be staying. When parliament gathered at Shrewsbury Abbey in 1283, King Edward I was campaigning against the Welsh, and the building hosted the first ever sitting of the House of Commons when an assembled crew was asked to decide the fate of David II, the last native Prince of Wales. Their verdict was not favourable, and David was dragged through the town before being hung, drawn and quartered.

A hundred years later, Richard II also used the Abbey for political business when he summoned the Great Parliament of 1398.

In the early 15th century, the Abbey became the focus for the brutal Battle of Shrewsbury, after the Abbot Thomas Prestbury became embroiled in the rebellion of Harry 'Hotspur' Percy and his uncle, the Earl of Worcester, against King Henry IV.

As with all English abbeys and priories, monastic life came to an end during King Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540.

Eventually only the nave of the church was saved, while the rest of the buildings were sold. The choir, transepts, high altar and lady chapel were all demolished and a new east wall erected. Other monastic buildings survived for some centuries, particularly the cloister's western range and the "Old Infirmary" which still stands today, though in a much reduced form.

The Abbey suffered much damage during the Siege of Shrewsbury in the English Civil War and was even used as a prison for the defeated Royalists after the Battle of Worcester in 1651.

However, the church gained a new lease of life after the Bishop of Lichfield was left £10,000 by Harriet Juson of Shrewsbury in 1885 for the construction of a new chancel. Of course, many of the visitors also come to get a flavour of what the Abbey would have looked like had Cadfael actually existed. And in a nod to Derek Jacobi's character, a small herb garden has been planted.