Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St Mary the Virgin

Parish church in Acton on Monks Lane. The building displays a varied architectural chronology, with the lower section of the west tower, including three internal arches, dating from the 13th century. The north aisle windows are 14th century, while elsewhere the church has a predominantly 15th-century appearance. The building underwent restorations in the 17th and 18th centuries, and again in 1897–98 by the architects Paley and Austin. The church is constructed of red sandstone with a lead roof.

The plan consists of a single bay beneath the tower, a 4-bay nave, and a 3-bay chancel. The square west tower at ground level has a pair of oak doors, each of three vertical panels, hung on decorative wrought-iron strap hinges within a Gothic-headed opening. The angles of the tower are reinforced with clasping buttresses, and a small door in the south-west buttress provides access to the bell-chamber steps. The windows in the lower part of the tower are narrow lancets. The top of the tower collapsed in 1757; the intersecting tracery of the bell-chamber windows and blind arcading in early Gothic Revival style date from the subsequent restoration by William Baker of Audlem.

The aisles have angle buttresses and buttresses between windows. The chancel and south aisle windows are Perpendicular in style, while the north aisle windows feature 14th-century cusped intersecting tracery. The clerestory windows are Gothic Revival in character and date from the 1879 restoration. The south nave entrance is surmounted by an ogee arch in 14th-century style, whereas the north nave entrance opposite appears to be 13th century. The chancel has an open-work parapet and gable cresting that constitute a striking 17th-century restoration; the nave has a solid parapet with crocketed pinnacles, set at an angle and supported by corbels carved with faces. A recess in the north chancel wall contains a headstone of a parishioner from Cholmondeston, dated 1671.

Interior

The west tower entrance leads into a narthex, flanked and fronted by three 13th-century tower arches. The south arch opens to a chapel, the north to the vestry, and the east arch, which has a small dog tooth mould to the north capital, leads to the nave. The nave has 4-bay arcades with octagonal 13th-century piers and late 19th-century capitals. The chancel arch, which is moulded to floor level, dates from the 14th century. The chancel floor is laid with stone slabs in a diamond pattern. The reredos displays the Ten Commandments north of the altar and the Lord's Prayer and Creed south of it. The Communion Rail features splat balusters, and between the communion rail and the choir is Jacobean oak dado panelling, formerly part of a rood screen, with a gate decorated with arch and strapwork motifs. The 19th-century choir stalls are in matching Jacobean style. The chancel stained glass east window dates from 1886 and is by Kempe. In the south wall of the chancel is a single sedile with a cusped ogee arch.

The carved oak pulpit, mounted on a stone base, and the oak eagle lectern are both 19th-century work. In the north aisle stands a recessed tomb-chest with elaborate stone panelling and shields, above which lies an alabaster effigy of Sir William Mainwaring, who died in 1399. The south aisle contains a black, white, and grey marble tomb chest supporting recumbent effigies of Sir Richard Wilbraham, who died in 1643, and his wife, who died in 1660. A fine tablet memorial to Mary Wilbraham, who died in 1632, is located in the south-west chapel. Several good wall memorials are positioned in the chancel. The round font at the west end of the nave is Norman in origin at its upper section, decorated with alternating flower and figure motifs. A number of carved Norman stones are also present at the east end of the south aisle.

The nave is covered with a late 19th-century barrel ceiling with trusses featuring short posts off level tie beams with end brackets and stone corbels. The chancel ceiling is similar to that of the nave but is distinguished by more decorative trusses.