Betjeman’s Best British Churches. Richard Surman
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church, mostly of the 13th and 15th centuries, dwarfs its tiny village. The tower, rebuilt in 1757, is an early instance of Gothic Revival. The low screen and other chancel furnishings are partly late 17th-century, although they look older. There is a Norman font, a 15th-century canopied wall-tomb and some fine 17th-century effigies.
ASTBURY † St Mary
1m/2km S.W. of Congleton
OS SJ846615 GPS 53.1507N, 2.2314W
The great battlemented church makes the sloping village green look like a glacis and the lych gate like a barbican. Outside details are sharp and well-preserved because the building stone is millstone grit – rare in Cheshire. The N.W. tower became detached during a c. 13th-century rebuilding of the church, at which time the main body was moved further south. Inside are superb oak roofs, Perpendicular in style, but with inscriptions of 1616 and 1702 to indicate installation or possibly alteration. The N. aisle roof, though – with its overabundance of angels for the space it occupies – was brought from elsewhere and is likely to be 15th- or early 16th-century. There are 15th-century stalls, a screen, wooden eagle lectern, 17th-century altar rails, Royal Arms and a font with mechanical cover. Sir G. G. Scott used a light touch in the 1862 restoration.
BADDILEY † St Michael
4m/6km W. of Nantwich
OS SJ605503 GPS 53.0489N, 2.5905W
By farm lanes in flat country, St Michael’s is neither easy to find nor to interpret. The timber-framed chancel dates from 1308 and the brick nave of 1811 has a ceiled roof of 15th-century type. The tympanum is one of the most interesting in England – pre-Reformation in structure, with painted Creed, Commandments and a Coat of Arms dated 1663. It is some 20 feet square and is supported on an eight-foot screen; it divides the lower chancel from the nave with claustrophobic thoroughness. Elsewhere there is a W. gallery, box pews and a pretty pulpit.
ASTBURY: ST MARY – the woodwork throughout is exceptional, topped off by magnificent ceilings that are divided into patterns of rectangles by moulded beams with richly carved and gilded bosses
BIRTLES † St Catherine
4m/6km W. of Macclesfield
OS SJ862747 GPS 53.27N, 2.2074W
A freak brick church of 1840 with octagonal tower in a wooded parkland setting, it was built originally for the squire, Thomas Hibbert, but has been parochial since 1890. The inside is all self-confident vitality and Victorian treasure hunting. There is good 16th- and 17th-century Netherlandish glass and an ornate pulpit of 1686; the family pew and reader’s desk are made up of carved pieces and the baptistry is decorated with painted panels.
BUNBURY † St Boniface
3m/4km S. of Tarporley
OS SJ569580 GPS 53.1182N, 2.6452W
A large, well-sited 14th-century collegiate church, with nave arcades and wide aisle windows of about a hundred years later, St Boniface’s was well restored after severe war damage. Four of the original doors have survived, and there are also 16th-century oak doors with lattice panels in the stone screen of the chantry chapel. An important early alabaster effigy of Sir Hugh Calveley is in the chancel, and there are many interesting fittings.
CAPESTHORNE † Holy Trinity
6m/10km W. of Macclesfield
OS SJ840727 GPS 53.2513N, 2.2411W
The chapel of a great house, Holy Trinity was designed by William Smith and built in 1722. The drive to the house and chapel sweeps through a park with views over woods and a lake. The chapel itself, of brick with stone dressings, is rectangular, with a balustrade and cupola. The interior is somewhat darkened by injudicious Victorian glass, and there is a mosaic reredos of 1886–8. The pews were arranged college-fashion in 1877, and there is a raised family pew at the W. end, original rails and a good font.
CHELFORD † St John the Evangelist
6m/10km W. of Macclesfield
OS SJ819739 GPS 53.2624N, 2.2727W
A stone-dressed brick church of 1774–6; the tower was added in 1840. Inside are box pews, a splendid Art Nouveau pulpit, altar rails, choir stalls and mural decorations with sprays of flowers and saints, all by Percy Worthington, 1903, and some stained glass by Morris & Co. The W. Gallery is now a meeting room.
CHESTER † St John the Baptist
St John Street
OS SJ409661 GPS 53.1891N, 2.8856W
A Victorian exterior hides this dignified Norman cruciform church, with its early 12th-century arcades. There is a painted reredos by Heaton, Butler & Bayne to a John Douglas design, 1876. The church stands adjacent to a Roman amphitheatre and Grosvenor Park.
CHOLMONDELEY † St Nicholas
6m/10km N. of Whitchurch
OS SJ544516 GPS 53.0600N, 2.6809W
The private chapel of the castle, St Nicholas’s is set on a plateau in park – cruciform and built of brick and stone. The nave and walls encasing an older structure have been attributed to Vanbrugh, but in fact they were built by Fetherston in 1716, with transepts added in 1829. The hammerbeam roof is medieval, and the rails, screen and other furniture 17th-century. The Family Pew or State Gallery has cushions fashioned from robes worn at the coronation of William IV.
CHRISTLETON † St James
Suburb, 3m/4km E. of Chester
OS SJ440657 GPS 53.1856N, 2.8383W
In a rich, pretty village is W. Butterfield’s only complete Cheshire church, 1875–7. The late 15th-century tower was retained at Butterfield’s own request: ‘This country is an old country, but if we don’t take care it will soon be as new a one as America… You had better keep the old tower and so look a little different to the modern new churches which are generally so noisy and pretentious.’ What giants those Victorians were! His new church honours its site with warm red and white polychromy and excellent fittings.
CONGLETON † St Peter
Chapel Street, 11m/18km N. of Stoke-on-Trent
OS SJ859627 GpS 53.1618N, 2.2115W
This is an unspoilt town church of 1740–2, whose Gothic tower was added in 1786. The lower part of the 14th-century tower was retained during the 1786 Gothic tower restoration. It is plain outside and most pleasing within: galleries on three sides, supported on piers with columns above. There are fine box pews throughout, those in the galleries steeply tiered, a William III Arms, a particularly good brass candelabrum of 1748 and interesting 18th-century glass. The font is original, as are the altar rails.
CREWE GREEN † St Michael and All Angels
2m/3km E. of Crewe
OS SJ726553 GPS 53.0947N, 2.4092W
By Sir George Gilbert Scott, 1857–9, the church stands in one of Crewe Hall’s modest hamlets, a colourful church of red and blue brick, stone shafts and a steeply tiled roof. The interior with apsed chancel is polychromatic, with lots of good carving and excellent glass.
ELLESMERE PORT – HOOTON
† St Paul
Near Hooton, 3m/4km N.W. of Ellesmere Port