The Collegiate Church of St Bartholomew, Tong (also known as St Bartholomew's Church) is a 15th-century church in the village of Tong, Shropshire, England, notable for its architecture and fittings, including its fan vaulting in a side chapel, rare in Shropshire, and its numerous tombs. It was built on the site of a former parish church and was constructed as a collegiate church and chantry on the initiative of Isabel Lingen, who acquired the advowson from Shrewsbury Abbey and additional endowments through royal support. Patronage remained with the lords of the manor of Tong, who resided at nearby Tong Castle, a short distance to the south-west, and the tombs and memorials mostly represent these families, particularly the Vernons of Haddon Hall, who held the lordship for more than a century. Later patrons, mostly of landed gentry origin, added further memorials, including the Stanley Monument which is inscribed with epitaphs said to be specially written by William Shakespeare.
The church was the site of a minor skirmish during the English Civil War and also hosts the grave of Little Nell from Charles Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop, despite the character being entirely fictitious. The building is grade I listed and had its lead roof replenished with steel during 2017 to deter thieves. Due to its many monuments inside the church and ornate architecture, it is sometimes labelled as The Westminster Abbey of The Midlands, often featuring as one of the best churches in The Midlands and in England.
Earlier churches at Tong
No church at Tong is mentioned in Domesday Book.Domesday text, Phillimore reference: SHR 4,1,24 At that point Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Shrewsbury, held the manor both as tenant-in-chief and as manorial lord. The cartulary of Shrewsbury Abbey shows that Earl Roger granted it the advowson of the church at Tong and a pension of half a mark from its income, so the church must have been built between Domesday in 1087 and his death in 1094.Eyton. Antiquities of Shropshire, volume 2, p. 247.. Cf. In conjunction with p. 181, on Donington church, which was also part of Earl Roger's endowment of his abbey. After Robert of Bellême, 3rd Earl of Shrewsbury forfeited his family's lands through revolt, Tong and nearby Donington were granted by Henry I to Richard de Belmeis I,Eyton. Antiquities of Shropshire, volume 2, p. 192. his viceroy in Shropshire and the Welsh Marches, who also became Bishop of London, and who held the churches on both estates from Shrewsbury Abbey until his death in 1127.Eyton. Antiquities of Shropshire, volume 2, p. 247. He ensured the two churches were restored to Shrewsbury Abbey on his death but his secular holdings went to his nephew Philip de Belmeis, one of the founders of Lilleshall Abbey.
After about four decades the male line of Belmeis at Tong became extinct and Alan la Zouche acquired the manor through marriage to Alicia de Belmeis.Eyton. Antiquities of Shropshire, volume 2, p. 207–10 . The Zouche family maintained the Belmeis link with the Augustinian abbey at Lilleshall, where they sometimes claimed advowson, rather than Benedictine Shrewsbury.
The implicit tension between secular and ecclesiastical authority came into the open under Alan's grandson, William la Zouche. William drove out Ernulf, a parish priest who had been duly presented by Shrewsbury Abbey and installed by Hugh Nonant, the Bishop of Coventry, some time between 1188 and 1194.Eyton. Antiquities of Shropshire, volume 2, p. 248. The row appears to have blown over and Ernulf died in 1220 in full possession of Tong church. However, Ernulf's death brought to the surface a further issue. The Abbey had already sold the pension from the church and the reversion of the parsonage to Robert de Shireford. Roger la Zouche, William's brother and heir, was outraged and initiated an assize of darrein presentment against the abbot at Westminster in November 1220, aiming to prove his own right to nominate Ernulf's successor. Although the procedure was intended to simplify disputes over advowson or patronage, the legal wrangle took over a year to settle. The key issue, raised at the outset of all such cases, was who had presented the previous priest. There was no evidence that Ernulf had ever been presented by the lord of the manor and Roger had no answer to the abbot's systematic documentation of Shrewsbury Abbey's grants: the case inevitably ended in victory for the abbey.Eyton. Antiquities of Shropshire, volume 2, p. 249–50.
A new church building seems to have been erected in 1260. By this time the male line of the la Zouche family at Tong had petered out and the manor was being passed through the descendants of Roger's daughter, Alice.Cf. The pedigree at Eyton. Antiquities of Shropshire, volume 2, p. 208–9. Her daughter Orabil married Henry de Penbrigg and in 1271 the couple were granted a charter by Henry III at Winchester, allowing them to hold a weekly market at Tong on Thursdays, as well as an annual fair stretching from the eve to the morrow of St Bartholomew the Apostle (23–25 August).Eyton. Antiquities of Shropshire, volume 2, p. 224. Henry's father, also Henry, had recently died, after losing the family's patrimony of Pembridge in Herefordshire as a result of his participation in the Second Barons' War.Eyton. Antiquities of Shropshire, volume 2, p. 228-9. Hence, his main manor was now Tong and his successors were generally described as Pembrugge or Pembridge of Tong Castle. The last of these was Sir Fulk Pembridge, a very substantial landowner who was a member of the Parliament of England for Shropshire just once, in 1397. The History of Parliament avers that "Pembridge's status as a wealthy landowner is not reflected in his public service." He died in 1409 sine prole (without issue), despite two marriages. Sir Fulk had greatly expanded his lands and wealth through his first marriage to Margaret Trussell, only 14 years old when her father died in 1363 but already a widow. Margaret died in 1399. Sir Fulk's second wife, Isabel Lingen, who had been married twice before, was to survive him by 37 years. She was from the Herefordshire landed gentry, the daughter of Sir Ralph Lingen, of Wigmore, according to the History of Parliament. The inquisition for the feudal aid levied by Edward III in 1346 found a Radulphus de Lingayn holding the manors of Aymestrey and Lower Lye,Feudal Aids, volume 2, p. 393. close to both Lingen and Wigmore in Herefordshire: both estates belonged to the honour of Radnor and were within the large tracts of the Welsh Marches dominated by the Mortimer family of Wigmore Castle. Isabel had Tong and a large portfolio of Trussell estates settled on her for life, which was to lead to prolonged and bitter conflict between the Trussell family and Sir Fulk's heir, Richard Vernon of Haddon Hall.
Foundation of the college
The present church was founded by the widowed Isabel Lingen as a chantry and collegiate church. In order to secure the new foundation, Isabel took the precaution of acquiring the advowson of the church from Shrewsbury Abbey and securing a financial basis for the foundation.Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1408–1413, p. 280. This was an expensive process, with the royal licence alone, granted by Henry IV at Leicester on 25 November 1410, costing £40Auden, J. E. Documents relating to Tong College, p. 176. (). Even after parting with the right to nominate the priests, the Abbey retained its token annual pension of 6s. 8d. or half a mark. Isabel applied for the licence jointly with two clerics, Walter Swan and William Mosse, who were both feoffees for Sir Fulk Pembridge. The three together donated in frankalmoin a messuage, or property with dwelling, in Tong itself, together with the advowson of St Batholomew's. Mosse gave the advowson of St Mary's Church at Orlingbury in Northamptonshire. Mosse and Swan together donated lands at Sharnford in Leicestershire: two messuages, two virgates of land and four acres of meadow. In addition the two priests gave the reversion of the manor of Gilmorton, also in Leicestershire,Given by Victoria County History as Guilden Morden in Cambridgeshire, which seems to be incorrect. Gilmorton was one of the estates inherited by Fulk Pembridge from the Trussells. See which was at the time occupied by Sir William Newport and his wife Margaret: it seems that Newport himself was dead by 1417.Auden, J. E. Documents, p. 178-9. Cf. footnote 2.
The new foundation was intended from the outset to be housed in a new and permanent building, as the king recognised that Isabel, Walter and William "proposed to erect, make and found the Church of Tong, mentioned above, into a certain permanent college"Auden, J. E. Documents, p. 177. (prædictam ecclesiam de Tonge ... erigere, facere et fundare proponant in quoddam collegium perpetuo duraturum).Dugdale. Monasticon Anglicanum, volume 6.3, p. 1402. The number of priests who would constitute the college was left helpfully vague: "five chaplains, more or less, of whom one is to be appointed by this Isabel, Walter and Wiliam, their heirs or assignees as warden of the same college" (quinque capellanis seu pluribus paucioribus quorum unus per ipsos Isabellam Walterum et Willielmum hæredes vel assignatos suos deputandus sit custos eiusdem collegii.) The name was specified as "the College of St Bartholomew the Apostle of Tong."
The principal purpose of Isabel's foundation was to intercede by regular masses for the souls of her three husbands: in reverse chronological order, Sir Fulke de Pembrugge or Pembridge,The spelling "Pembrugge" is one of many used in an age when orthography had not been codified: "Pembruge" and "Penbrugge" are among the variants. Elizabeth and Isabel were used interchangeably, the latter a Spanish version of the former that spread via the French and English royal families: cf. . A knight's wife was usually styled Dame, the French version of the Latin Domina – "Mistress": Lady crept in later and was sometimes applied retrospectively. Isabel was simply so-called in most contemporary documents. In Latin she is generally introduced as Isabella quæ fuit uxor Fulconis de Penbrugge militis – "Isabel who was the wife of Sir Fulk Pembridge," to distinguish her from others of the same name. She is never Lady Pembrugge, as neither the title nor the surname usage was current at the time. Her husband's name can be rendered in numerous ways, e.g. Fulco, Fulk, Fulke or Faulk. It was actually a shortened form of a range of compound names containing an element meaning "people" or "tribe": folk in modern English. Cf. Hanks et al. p. 763. who had died only a year earlier, Sir Thomas Peytevin and Sir John Ludlow who all predeceased her. However, the list of beneficiaries is not so simple. The king had himself placed first, followed by his half-brother, Thomas Beaufort, who was at that time his Chancellor. Sir Fulk and his first wife, Margaret Trussell followed, and then Isabel's former husbands, her parents and ancestors, and finally "all the faithful departed"Auden, J. E. Documents, p. 177-8.