Unitarian Chapel

MACCLESFIELD

SJ9173NE KING EDWARD STREET 886-1/10/115 (South side) 14/04/49 Unitarian Chapel

GV II*

Unitarian chapel. Dated 1690, with C19 alterations. Coursed and squared rubble with plinth, and stone-flagged roof. Galleried interior expressed as 2 storeys, 6-window range. EXTERIOR: external staircases giving access to galleries at each side, the lower doorways beneath the stairway. Ogee arched upper doorway, shallow segmental arches to lower openings. Windows are 2- and 3-light mullions, with traceried glazing, renewed in 1929, with the exception of the central windows on each floor, which were then blocked on the inside, and which retain their C19 glazing - interlace tracery with coloured glass margin lights. INTERIOR: entered via a lobby passage to west. Fittings mainly date from early re-ordering of 1846 and form a coherent design. Galleries to east and west, a former south gallery removed in C19. Blind trefoiled panelling of gallery echoed in panels between queen posts of roof structure, and in wall panelling to north and south. 2-decker pulpit in centre of north wall, with suspended sounding board. Plain panelled, with turned balusters to stairs. Pews mainly C19. Gilded cusped tracery to wall panels each side of pulpit, with painted prayers. The panelling was extended across the windows each side of the pulpit in 1929. Organ of 1846 on east gallery. The chapel is built to exactly the same design as other late C17 Unitarian chapels in Knutsford and Wilmslow.

Listing NGR: SJ9168273804