Church Of St Mary And All Saints

Church of St Mary and All Saints

This is a large parish church dating from the 14th century to 1527, with 16th-century work by mason Thomas Hunter. The windows were repaired between 1848 and 1863, and the church was refurnished in the later 19th century by architects A Salvin, W Butterfield and J Douglas. The building is constructed in red sandstone with low-pitched roofs, probably leaded, though not visible from outside.

The church comprises a west tower, an aisled nave with south porch, transept chapels to both north and south, a chancel with south and north chapels (the north chapel now serving as organ chamber and vestry), and various interconnected spaces.

The three-stage west tower dates to approximately 1500–1520, comparable to St Helen in Northwich. It features diagonal buttresses, an octagonal south-west turret, and a replaced oak west door set within an ornamented archway surmounted by a band carved with coats of arms. Decayed carved panels flank the door. The tower has a Tudor-arched west window, small arched bell-ringers' windows on the north, west and south faces, eroded bas-relief panels on north and south faces, and a clock on the west face. A band separates these from paired two-light bell-openings with transoms and stone louvres. The tower is topped by crenellation with eight crocketed pinnacles.

The nave features four-light panel-traceried west and south aisle windows, three-light north aisle windows with intersecting tracery, and south clerestorey windows with Tudor arches and four lights with alternating basket-arched and trefoil heads. North clerestorey windows have four lights with rudimentary panel tracery. A plain crenellated porch on the south contains a door of broad oak boards and a square two-light aisle window above; the north door has been restored. The south transept chapel has an ornate four-light south window with panel tracery, an altered three-light west window with intersecting tracery, and a restored lancet to the east. The south chancel chapel contains a priest's door and three-light south and east windows with panel tracery. The chancel's five-light east window displays transitional curvilinear and panel tracery. The north chancel chapel has a panel-traceried east window of three lights, a blocked opening, and a three-light north window with transitional curvilinear and panel tracery.

The north transept Lady Chapel is 14th-century work with gabled buttresses, two two-light east windows, a three-light north window with panel tracery, a priest's door, and a restored three-light reticulated window under a depressed arch. All elements throughout are crenellated; diagonal corner buttresses and numerous varied gargoyles ornament the exterior.

Internally, the tower arch is simply recessed in three orders. The nave arcades contain six bays. The north arcade has three square piers with half-round responds and two piers with concave corners between responds and arches with large convex mouldings and carved heads and other motifs on the capitals. The south arcade, later in date, features concave corners and triple shafts on each face with lighter arch mouldings. A panelled oak camber-beam roof without bosses spans the nave; shafts and two bands articulate the clerestorey. The south aisle has a restored camber-beam roof; the north aisle has a rebuilt roof of no architectural interest. The chancel arch has continuing mouldings and no capitals, with a rood-loft arch visible to the north; the line of the former roof is visible above the arch.

The Lady Chapel in the north transept, which contains a stone screen by Salvin, has an oak roof with unbraced crown posts and massive tie-beams on brackets. The Warburton Chapel in the south transept displays a panelled camber-beam oak roof with ornate principal beams and ovolo secondary beams. The chancel arcades span two bays and support a wagon roof. The south chancel chapel has a restored or replaced oak camber-beam panelled roof; the organ chamber and vestry contain a replaced roof of no architectural interest.

The furnishings include a 15th-century octagonal font, a benefactions board dated 1703 at the west corner of the south aisle, and stained glass by Kempe in the east window, south chancel chapel east window, and vestry east window. Lady Chapel glass dates to 1965 by Fourmaintreaux and the Whitefriars Glass Studio. Benches in the south chapel are possibly 13th-century; a medieval stone altar remains in the south chapel. A damaged effigy of Sir John Warburton (died 1575) and a monument to Sir Peter Warburton (died 1813) are preserved. An iron screen to the south chancel chapel dates to 1857; the organ is from 1839 and was repositioned in 1857; the pulpit dates to 1857; the lectern to 1888; and choir prayer desks by John Douglas date to approximately 1883 and were admired by T Raffles Davison.

This is largely a Perpendicular church with some Decorated features and 19th-century restoration work reflecting the influence of Rowland Egerton Warburton, an early patron of the Vernacular Revival movement.