st marys

The Protestant Parish Church of St. Mary's erected in 1807 in the grounds of an ancient monastery founded by the townspeople for mendicant Carmelite friars some years prior to the Norman Invasion. When the town walls were built in the 13th century they were extended, at this point, to enclose the monastery within their compass. It was here, at the south east corner of the churchyard, that Oliver Cromwell, with cannon mounted on the heights, on the opposite side of the deep declavity known as The Dale, made the breach in the wall which enabled his forces to enter the town in September 1649. An extensive length of the south-eastern wall of the town still stands at the rear of the churchyard, directly opposite the path leading from the front gates. The walls were twenty feet high, six feet thick at the base, tapering to four feet thick at the top, buttresses and platforms being added after the invention of gunpowder and cannon.