Listed Building: CHURCH OF ST MARYS (1375848)

CHESTER CITY (EM) SJ4065 HANDBRIDGE 1932-1/8/168 (North West side) 10/01/72 Church of St Mary's (Formerly Listed as: OVERLEIGH ROAD Parish Church of St Mary Without-the-Walls) GV II* Parish church. 1885-87. By FB Wade at the expense of the first Duke of Westminster. Squared snecked red sandstone with steep Westmorland green slate roofs. PLAN: west tower and spire; 5-bay aisled nave; south-east chapel; 3-bay presbytery; organ chamber and loft and vestry; 2 south porches and north porch. EXTERIOR: 3-stage tower with recessed octagonal spire: angle buttresses; canted baptistry with 3 lancets and hipped stone roof on west face; rose window; lancet with blank lancet to each side on north, west and south faces; clock-faces to north, west and south flanked by blank trefoils; paired louvred lancets as bell-openings on each face; machicolated parapet; 2 pinnacles diagonally-set at each corner; lucarne to each cardinal face of spire; weathervane; a 2-light window with plate tracery to west end of each aisle. Gabled porch on south face of tower added by PH Lockwood 1914 has boarded double doors of oak on ornate wrought-iron hinges. South aisle with triple lancets to each bay; gabled south-east porch with trefoil window to west and boarded door on ornate hinges; 5 triple cusped lancets in recessed arched panels to clerestory of nave; gutter on corbel-table. Pair of south gables to south-east chapel, each with a pair of lancets with trefoil above; 3-bay chancel clerestory has pairs of cusped lancets surmounted by trefoils; 3 cinquefoil windows to east end of chapel. East window of 3 lancets and 3 trefoils under moulded arch, with a lancet and trefoil to each side. 2 lancets and trefoils to east bay of north aisle; dual lancets to vestry and, above, to east end of organ loft; north side of vestry has gable chimney with dual lancet to each side. North porch in corner with vestry has rainwater head dated 1886; boarded oak door on ornate wrought-iron hinges; 4 triple lancets to north aisle; 5 triple cusped lancets to clerestory. All bays of the church have stepped buttresses gabled at the top. INTERIOR: apsidal baptistry in tower has pillared stone font with oak cover; fine encaustic tiled floor; glass including Christ's baptism 1887 by Edward Frampton. Tower floor of encaustic tiles; portrait memorial tablet to Hugh Lupus first Duke of Westminster 1900; leaded oak glazed inner doors from porch; full-height tower arch; double half-column west responds and 4 concave-faced octagonal columns to each nave arcade; half-octagon east responds; armorial glass in aisle and clerestory windows; tall chancel arch with triple-shaft responds; wood-block nave floor; 3 steps up to chancel; mosaic floor; oak reading desk; oak pulpit with wrought-iron rail to steps; wrought-iron screen to south-east chapel; bay-shafts; stained glass clerestory, south; triforium to organ-loft, north; sedilia, stepping up eastward; height of sanctuary emphasised by tall shafts; altar rail of oak and wrought-iron; excellent reredos by Frederic Shields and Clement Heaton, centre-piece c1887, wings 1896; east window of Crucifixion, probably by Frampton. The south-east chapel has double cross-vaults of timber, richly coloured glass in east cinquefoil windows. A satisfying interior in proportions, spatial organisation, detailing and liturgical furnishing. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Hubbard E: Cheshire: Harmondsworth: 1971-: 174; Parochial Church Council, St Mary, Handbridge: Correspondence with PH Lockwood: 1913-1914). Listing NGR: SJ4069265462