Church spotlight: St John the Evangelist's Church in Lawley
It was the hardship of the pallbearers which won the day.
When farmer Bartholomew Yates called for a church in the fast-growing village of Dawley in the 1860s, it was his tales of people having to carry coffins four miles to funerals which appear to have won over the church authorities.
"Lawley was a very small hamlet until they discovered coal and clay under the surface," says lay minister Mike Duckett, who has been involved with the church for around 16 years.
Founded: 1865.
Capacity: 120.
Main Sunday services are 9.15am. Tomorrow the service with the Bishop of Shrewsbury takes place at 10.30am.
The stained glass east window is in memory of Thomas Wragg, the self-educated clergyman and poet who was the first minister at St Johns.
The tower at St Johns has a steep pyramidal roof, though at Lawley the tower is situated unusually in the angle between the nave and the chancel.[/breakout]
"Then it suddenly mushroomed from having just a handful of people living there, to 1,500, and Bartholomew Yates, who lived at Lawley House Farm, engaged with the bishop, saying that now they had this big population, they needed a church.
"One of his arguments was that it meant people had to walk with coffins down to Wellington or Malinslee. Friends and neighbours used to come as pallbearers, they used to have a relay, for four or five miles."
St John the Evangelist's Church in Lawley celebrates its 150th anniversary this weekend with a series of special events.
Today the church will be open all day for an exhibition, with organ recitals and a flower festival going on throughout the day. The church hall will also feature a display chronicling the history of the church, while tomorrow the Bishop of Shrewsbury, the Rt Rev Mark Ryland, will lead a service.
St John's was built in 1865, originally as a chapel of ease, on land donated by the Coalbrookdale Company – which employed most of Lawley's population at that time –and Lord Forrester.
Building costs were borne by Coalbrookdale Company partners Henry Dickenson and Mary Jones (nee Darby), as well as others. The same year it was licensed for baptisms, marriages and burials, and in 1867 a consolidated chapelry was assigned to it, comprising Lawley Township and the north-east part of Little Wenlock Parish.
The first minister, Thomas Ragg, served from 1865 to 1881. He was self-educated and was ordained in 1858, and previously served as curate at St Leonard's in Malinslee.
The church was designed by John Ladds in the Gothic style. It is of red and yellow brick with stone dressings and comprises a chancel with apse, north chapel, used since 1905 as a vestry, a south vestry, now used as a boiler house, a southwest turret and spire and a nave with gallery and south porch.
The single bell, made in 1865 was added in 1915. A red and white marble font stands at the southwest entrance dating from the church's inception.
The original pump organ was replaced in 1970 with the present manual pipe organ. The church has a seven-sided wooden pulpit and the original wooden lectern from 1884 was donated to the church by Thomas Machin in memory of his mother. Machin, of Horsehay, also donated the stained glass west, window in September 1902 in memory of his parents, John and Lizzie Machin.
A priest-in-charge was appointed from 1965 to1975 when Lawley became a district in the new parish of Central Telford. Today it shares its vicar, the Rev Grant Crowe, with nearby St Leonard's at Malinslee.
Unlike many churches, the fabric of St John's has changed little over the past century-and-a-half.
"The church had been untouched until 2007, when we added a small extension," says Mike. "You can't really see the join."
Ironically, Mike says that not long after the church opened, the population began to dwindle again, although the church does not appear to have suffered.
"Within 10 short years, all the coal had been worked out, and there was mass migration from the area," he says.
However, the growth of Lawley in recent years has seen St John's once more enjoy a growing congregation. "I would say we typically get around 40 people, it is expanding," says Mike, who is 66. He adds that unusually for a church in central Telford, there is still capacity in the churchyard for burials, and he says St John's is very popular as a venue for weddings and baptisms.
Just as when it was founded, the church continues to play a very important role at the heart of life in Lawley. Mike says: "We are very much an outward-looking church. The church hall was refurbished two years ago, it now provides a base for the Beavers, the Cubs and the WI, we have a yoga group and dance groups that meet there as well, it's the hub of the community."
