Monument record 10671 - Church of St Oswald

The Collegiate Church of St Werburgh was the parish church for the area and when it was merged in the Benedictine Abbey in 1093 (see CHER 9037 for Saxon period history of the church), the parishioners were granted permission to continue their worship at the Altar of St Oswald located there (1).

This was probably in the south aisle of the nave, as in the second half of the thirteenth century the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield decided that the parishioners of the Altar of St Oswald should be responsible for repairing the wall, windows and roof of the 'nave aisle' of the abbey church (CHER 10640/1) and for enclosing their cemetery which adjoined it (2).

In the mid-fourteenth century, the south arcade of the church nave was rebuilt, so the parishioners were displaced, probably to the Chapel of St Nicholas, to the south-west of the abbey church (3). However, Richards suggests that a separate Church of St Oswald was built on the ground which is now included in the south transept, but when expansion to the south was planned, the Chapel of St Nicholas was built and the parishioners moved there (1).

The traditional view is that in 1488 the parishioners moved back into the south transept of abbey church, but both Burne and the VCH consider that at this time, the Abbot agreed to share with the parishioners the cost of completing an extension to St Nicholas's Chapel, otherwise known as 'the new church of St Oswald' (2, 3). The parishioners did return to the south transept but the exact date of this event is unknown. It may have been 1509, when St Oswald's became a separate parish and the abbey precinct, an extra parochial area (4). Or, it must have been before 1539 when St Nicholas's Chapel was leased to the city as a Common Hall. At the time of the return, the doorway would have been made for the parishioners to enter at the south end of the transept (3).

The parishioners of St Oswald remained in the south transept until 1881 when they moved to a church built in 1871 outside the walls, which was previously dedicated to St Thomas (1). The remodelling of the interior of the south transept was completed as a memorial to the first duke of Westminster in 1900 – 1902 when the stone vaults were installed on the west aisle (6).

During excavations at the rear of Woolworths in 1959, four burials were recorded that are thought to have belonged to this church (CHER 10671/1).

<1> Richards R, 1947, Old Cheshire Churches, Richards R 1972 /387-8 (Book). SCH2309.

<2> Harris, B.E. (ed), 1987, Victoria County History - A History of the County of Chester: Volume I, 3/132-146 Harris B 1980 (Book). SCH3556.

<3> Burne, R. V. H., 1962, The Monks of Chester. The History of St Werburgh's Abbey (Book). SCH3213.

<4> Alldridge N.J, 1981, Aspects of the topography of early medieval Chester, Alldridge N J 1981 64/5-31 (Article in Journal). SCH5931.

<5> Gastrell F, 1845-1850, Notitia Cestriensis, or historical notices of the diocese of Chester, Gastrell F 1845/111-114 (Article in Journal). SCH2290.