Building record 1965/1/4 - Church of St Mary

<1> English Heritage, 2005, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest, 55301 (Digital Archive). SCH4666.

Church, 1899, by G F Bodley, built at the at expense of the first Duke of Westminster. Coursed red sandstone; pitched leaded roof to nave and chancel. West tower; continuous nave and chancel with aisles; south porch; north vestry. Exterior has severe rectilinear massing, little adorned, with windows placed high in walls. Flat-roofed buttressed aisles and vestry with solid parapets; pierced parapet and carved enrichment on porch. Flying buttresses to clerestory at alternate bays. Tower with paired bell openings with quatrefoils, stringcourses, buttresses and frieze to crenelated parapet. Complex Decorated east window; reticulated tracery elsewhere. Interior: Rib-vaulted throughout; baptistry in tower; six bay open arcade on quatrefoiled octagon piers with shafts to vault joined by moulded string at head of arcade. Glazing and furniture complete: glass by Burlison and Grylls; reredoses (Farmer and Brindley); tomb to first Duke (Bodley, Chavalliaud, Farmer and Brindley); chancel and chapel screens; organ case; font with tall cover; south door of oak with good wrought ironwork. Of fourteenth to fifteenth century inspiration, the church is a complete example of Bodley's mature style; it anticipates features of Liverpool Cathedral. Cf. St Mary, Newbold Astbury; the late fifteenth century disposition of nave, chancel and aisles and the treatment of their arcades are similar.

<2> Hartwell C, Hyde M, Hubbard E & Pevsner N, 2011, The Buildings of England: Cheshire (2011 revision), p.352-3 (Book). SCH7059.

Church built between 1897 and 1900 for the first Duke of Westminster, Hugh Lupus. The architect was GF Bodley. The church is in a fourteenth century style with decorated gothic tracery. Full architectural description.

<3> Williams SR, 1970s-1980s, Rhys Williams' Aerial Photographs, 3.0182 (Aerial Photograph). SCH4607.