History
Despite the strong Industrial Revolution profile, St Mary's parish register deposited at Birmingham Central Library commences in 1558, and the first stone church building was erected on the site around 1160. It was a small and austere Norman structure, occupying about half of the present south aisle. The church's few surviving Norman features can be seen at the lower stages of the sandstone tower at the original church's east end.
In its long history, St Mary's has undergone successive and opinionated reconstruction, especially in 1820 and 1870. As a Staffordshire country church placed at the convergence of several cross country tracks, St Mary's became a significant part of the largest industrial city in Britain.
In his 1851 History, Gazetteer and Directory of Staffordshire, William White records:
Handsworth Church, St Mary, is picturesquely situated on the Hamstead road, about two miles (3 km) NNW of Birmingham. It is an ancient structure, partly rebuilt and enlarged in 1820, and has a tower with six bells, which like the other remaining parts of the ancient fabric, is in the decorated style of the time of Edward III. In the chancel are two recumbent effigies of members of the Wyrley family, and an ancient piscena. On the south side, a neat groined chapel has been raised over the vault of the late celebrated engineer, James Watt, Esq, of whom there is in the chapel a beautiful white marble statue, by Chantrey. Among the numerous mural monuments in the church is one in memory of the late Matthew Boulton, Esq, of Soho. The rectory is in the patronage of the Rev John Peel, DD, and the Rev George William Murray, MA, is the incumbent.
Handsworth parish was transferred from Staffordshire to Warwickshire in 1911. The rectory to which White refers was demolished in the 1890s to make way for the large pond of Handsworth Park and at the start of the 21st century it is more accurate to describe St Mary's as situated on Hamstead Road in the Victorian suburb of Handsworth, in the Birmingham electoral ward of Lozells and East Handsworth; and, since 1974, the West Midlands county.
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