Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a predominantly Perpendicular Gothic style church located in Cheadle. The south chapel dates from around 1530, the nave from 1541, the tower from 1520 to 1540, the chancel from 1556 to 1558 – commissioned for Lady Catherine Buckley – and the porch is dated 1634. A major restoration took place between 1875 and 1882, accompanied by a vestry in 1877. A cloakroom was added in the 20th century.

The church is constructed of ashlar with a stone slate roof. The overall layout consists of a nave with aisles, a clerestory, transeptal chapels, a south porch, a central west tower and a chancel with a north vestry/organ chamber. The nave has four bays with a weathered plinth, angled buttresses and a castellated parapet. There are three-light 19th century windows to bays 1 and 3, and a four-light 16th century mullion window to bay 4, featuring a double-chamfered cavetto-moulded arched light. The porch, in bay 2, has angled buttresses terminating in ornate paired pinnacles with grotesque heads, framing a basket-arched door with a blind cusped arcade above. Each bay also contains two three-light mullioned clerestory windows.

The three-stage tower features diagonal buttresses, moulded bands, a clock in the second stage, a four-light belfry opening with a hoodmould, a castellated parapet, and grotesque gargoyles. The west door and window are 19th century. The two-bay chancel has two three-light windows, similar to those in the nave, but with arched lights under a square head and a basket-arched lintel over the priest’s door. The east window is a five-light 19th century design with rectilinear tracery.

Inside, the four-bay nave arcade has double-chamfered arches resting on octagonal columns with moulded bases and capitals. A fifth, smaller bay at the east marks the location of a former rood loft; a door serving this area remains, accompanied by a rood gallery in the north aisle. The nave and aisle roofs have braced oak camber-beam construction with gilded bosses. The chancel arch sits on half columns, with a crudely carved head on the north capital. Fragments of a rood screen have been re-used in the chancel screen, and there are finely carved 16th century oak parclose screens to the Savage and Brereton chapels. Monuments include a chest tomb with two alabaster Knights dating back to approximately 1460, and a stone recumbent effigy of Sir Thomas Brereton from 1673, situated on a tomb chest with shields. A 11th century cross is also present.