Church of St Gregory the Great, Morville

St Gregory’s Church was originally a Saxon minster dedicated to St Gregory during the reign of Edward the Confessor, and proably earlier. The church later became a cell of Shrewsbury Abbey in the 12th century, with a prior in residence until 1540.

St Gregory’s Church was once the centre of a very large parish and was built within the grounds of a Benedictine priory. The church was consecrated in the year 1118, and in 1136 it became a dependency of Shrewsbury Abbey and became known as Morville Priory.

The priory buildings were demolished in 1545 during Henry VIII‘s Dissolution of the Monasteries, leaving the church as the parish place of worship.

Remarkably the church has retained almost all of its original Norman elements and the building dates essentially from the 12th century, including the tower, nave, the chancel and chancel arch, the south door, a richly carved Norman font and some sculptures.