ST MARY

EXTERIOR OF THE CHURCH
The present Vicarage, built in 1956.
St. Mary’s from South West with the Church Hall on the right 'Sorry cock!’ In April 1993 while the spire was being restored, someone climbed the scaffolding one night, (188 feet) and stole the 200 year old weather cock. The Vicar put out an appeal through local press and radio for its return. In the early hours one morning the doorbell rang and there was the weathercock, with a new coat of paint and a written apology, “It was a drunken prank”! The story eventually appeared in the Daily Telegraph, with the heading, ‘Sorry cock!’	The outstanding feature of the church is undoubtedly the tower (25.3 metres) and spire (a further 30.5 metres) which can be seen for miles around. This massive tower, whose walls are 1.7m thick, was built in the early fourteenth century. The large western window was added in the fifteenth century. The stone surrounding the west door was restored in 1895. The tower has battlements with angle pinnacles. It is supported by eight buttresses set in pairs at the angles, each having four stages. At the south-east corner of the tower is a stone winding staircase which gives access to the battlements and a splendid view of the town, and far off Coventry. The spire was erected in 1788, replacing an earlier one which had been badly damaged two years previously by storms and lightning. The copper weathercock is 63.5cm high, 95.25cm long and weighs 5kg, and was made for the new spire in 1788, and is inscribed with the name of the vicar, John Cole Galloway. (Re-guilded 1994) The walls of the nave are thirteenth century but the battlements with crocketted pinnacles at the corners are Victorian.

The Vicarage, built in 1866,which stood where there is now a small car-park between the present vicarage and the Council Offices. Photo taken in 1890s, with the Vicar, Rev. La Grange Leney (1890 – 1904). The Vicarage grounds covered almost three acres	A garden fete in front of the old vicarage, in about 1960. It was then being used as Council Offices, later demolished. The Borough Council had purchased the vicarage and most of the grounds in 1956.
GRAVESTONES IN CHURCHYARD The burial ground around the church was closed in 1858, when the cemetery in Ashby Road was commenced. Until that date for almost eight centuries the churchyard was the burial place for the people of Hinckley. It was only in the eighteenth century that grave stones began to be a common feature in churchyards. Before then graves were unmarked and whenever a new grave was dug, the bones of previous burials were dug up and reburied with the corpse. This was obviously a sensible way of conserving land, but old grave stones have become a valuable part of our heritage. The churchyard possesses many fine examples of Swithland slate grave stones with beautiful lettering and ornamentation. Some grave stones deserve special mention.
William Bass It is one of the largest Swithland slates, and will be found at the east end of the church half way along the path running due North to Church Walk. Bass was a local artist who was only 25 when he died in 1781. Examples of his paintings and miniature portraits will be found in the Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council Offices (Civic Suite) next to the church. There is a long inscription. Here is part of it: “Though born in humble life, his merits were too conspicuous to remain unnoticed. He held for four years a commission in the Leicestershire Militia; till, worn by a severe and lingering illness, which defied all medical assistance, he retired to his native town, where the superiority of his genius was too late discovered by the Friend who inscribes his tomb. The last efforts of his pencil were views of Hinckley Church which will perpetuate his name when this frail memorial is crumbled with his ashes.” His mother is buried with him, aged 52. Thankfully this “frail memorial” shows no sign of crumbling, and you can see the drawings he did in the last months of his life in Nichols’ History of Hinckley (1813). We have reproduced some of them in this Guide Book.	Comedian’s Gravestone Near the churchyard gate is a grave to a Comedian: it is the third grave stone in from the gate, on the left, or the second lying flat. It was very rare for ‘comedian’ to be inscribed onto a grave stone, as it was not considered a respectable profession. Sadly the inscription is now difficult to read, though ‘Comedian’ is still legible. Helen Leacroft, who wrote a history of the theatre in Leicestershire, discovered the following: Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire Chronicle. Saturday 7th May, 1774 ‘On Monday night last (2nd May) at Hinckley, in this county, Mr Burton, an excellent performer in low comedy, (a member of Mr Chamberlain’s Company of Comedians – playing at the Hinckley Theatre) he died after eight days illness of a nervous fever, being a Free Mason the pall was supported by several brother Masons, drest in their aprons and medals and very decently inter’d on Tuesday night by a Subscription among’st the Comedians, now performing at that place, and who have agreed to erect a stone to his memory’.
Skull and crossbones There are many other interesting epitaphs and inscriptions. One tombstone, near the boiler house, has a skull and crossbones, but there is nothing sinister about this. It was merely a symbol for death. It is often referred to locally as ‘the pirate’s grave’ but this is wrong. The skull and crossbones was adopted by pirates, as a sign that they threatened death to anyone who interfered with them! Why a skull and cross bones as a symbol of death? Because it was believed that all that was needed for the resurrection of the body was the skull and the two femur bone	The Bleeding Tombstone You will find this due east of the Bass grave. In 1727 twenty year old Richard Smith joined a crowd surrounding a recruiting sergeant in Hinckley. As the soldier harangued and cajoled the crowd, the young man replied with quips and jokes. The exasperated sergeant lost his temper and ran him through with his pike. The inscription reads: ‘A fatal Halbert his mortal Body slew, The murdering Hand God’s vengeance will pursue From shades Terrestrial, though Justice took her flight Shall not the judge of all the Earth do right Each Age and Sex his Innocence bemoans And with sad sighs laments his dying Groans’. The tombstone is said to sweat blood on the anniversary of his death on April 12th! F.C.Bedford (who wrote a fine, lengthy and well-researched guide to this church in 1936, which formed the basis of this present guide) suggests an explanation: when this tombstone was in its original position near the East window of the chancel the ‘sweating’ may have been due to chemical action produced by water dripping from a block of peculiar red sandstone.