St Marys Centre

St Mary's Centre is a parish church of the 14th and around 1500, now in use as an educational centre. Built in red sandstone with low-pitch roofs, it stands on St Mary's Hill in Chester. The church was restored in 1861–62 by James Harrison and again in 1890–92 by JP Seddon. It was converted to an educational centre in the 1970s by the County Architect's Department for Cheshire County Council, without deconsecration.

The building comprises a three-stage west tower, a three-bay aisled nave that continues unbroken into the chancel, aisled chapels, a north porch, and a two-storey south porch (now used as an office).

The tower has diagonal west buttresses and a west door of around 1500 featuring an arch of two stones with quatrefoils above and a quatrefoil band beneath a four-light Y-tracery west window. Below paired Y-tracery bell-openings set under a four-centre arch runs a stringcourse with Tudor roses. The top stage, added by James Harrison in 1861–62, has gargoyles and a quatrefoil band beneath panel-and-quatrefoil pierced crenellation with eight pinnacles.

The refaced west end to the south aisle has a two-light Y-tracery window. Three steps lead to a framed and boarded oak door in the south porch, which has a band with carved-head stops, diagonal buttresses, and an upper window of three trefoil-headed lights. The south aisle has three traceried three-light windows, earlier than the tower, while six simple three-light clerestory windows light the nave above.

The south-east chapel, dating from 1443 but rebuilt in 1693, has three panel-traceried three-light windows, a low-level boarded oak priest's door in a moulded archway, and a four-light panel-tracery window in its east end. Between this chapel and the east end of the nave stands a rectangular buttress capped with a medieval carved winged lion of St Mark. The east window of the nave is five-light with panel tracery under a two-centre arch.

The north-east chapel has a five-light panel-tracery east window under a four-centre arch. The north side of the chapel and nave aisle features five panel-tracery four-light windows under four-centre arches. The north clerestory has six lattice-leaded windows of three trefoil-headed lights under depressed arches.

The north porch was rebuilt in 1892 by JP Seddon at the expense of Cheshire freemasons. It has octagonal buttresses, a moulded archway, and a crenellated gable. Its unaltered back wall retains double boarded oak doors, and a small commemorative window of 1892 by Shrigley and Hunt is installed here.

Internally, a full-height tower arch, probably of the 14th century, opens into the nave. The three-bay nave arcades have octagonal piers and twice-cambered four-centre arches. The nave is roofed with a fine camber-beam roof of forty panels per bay containing some 120 bosses, which were gilded and painted in the 1970s. The aisles have rebuilt camber-beam roofs.

Two steps lead beneath a 14th-century chancel arch, whose responds slope outward as they rise. The chancel has a four-bay arched wooden roof, apparently rebuilt during restoration, with a broad four-centre arch opening to the north chapel and a slightly pointed arch to the south chapel. Its east wall is plastered. The chapels have probably rebuilt oak roofs.

Stained glass includes an east window of 1857 by Wailes in memory of WH Massie, Rector. The east window of the north chapel, damaged, contains two lights of a Crimson War Memorial of around 1856 by Hedgeland. A north-west window depicts the four Evangelists in memory of TB Oldfield, died 1858. The east window of the south chapel preserves fragments of late Perpendicular glass in the tracery, along with memorial glass of 1865 by H Hughes to Mary L Barton. South windows contain memorial glass to Georgina Burkridge Roberts, Thomas Mawden (rector) and his sons and wife (1850 by Wailes), and John Hill and family.

The church contains approximately 72 monuments and cenotaphs dating from the 16th to early 20th centuries. Notable among these are a table tomb to Thomas Gamul, died 1616, and his wife, who erected it with recumbent effigies attended by their children; an alabaster monument to Phillip Oldfield with recumbent effigy; 17th-century wall monuments to Randle Holme II and family, Randle Holme III, and Randle Holme IV; a Gothic Revival tablet by James Harrison to William Currie, died 1834; and a monument to Ralph Worsley, Sergeant of the Crown and Warden of the Lions, Lionesses and Leopards in the Tower of London, died 1573.

Since the early Middle Ages, St Mary's Church has been associated with Chester Castle and subsequently with the County Gaol.