Staunton Harold Church

Staunton Harold Church

Staunton Harold Church is also known as the Chapel of the Holy Trinity and is one of the few churches built between the outbreak of the English Civil War and the restoration of the monarchy, representing an open act of defiance to Cromwell's Puritan regime by its creator, Sir Robert Shirley.

Sir Robert Shirley who was a Royalist and supporter of the King never saw his church completed. Cromwell on hearing of Shirleys fine church is reported to have asked why he could not pay towards a ship for the Navy when he could afford so fine a building. When he refused he was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he died, aged 27. The church was completed by the guardians of his son.

Above the west entrance in the tower is the inscription; "In the year 1653 when all things Sacred were throughout ye nation, Either demolisht or profaned, Sir Robert Shirley, Baronet, Founded this church; Whose singular praise it is, to have done the best things in ye worst times, and hoped them in the most callamitous. The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance."