Church Of St Mary

SJ 88 NE CHEADLE CHURCH STREET (west side) Cheadle

5/26 Church of St. Mary (formerly listed 24.3.50 under High Street)

G.V. I

Church. South chapel 1530, nave 1541, tower 1520-40, chancel 1556-8 for Lady Catherine Buckley and porch dated 1634. Major restoration of 1875-82 and vestry of 1877. Cloakroom C20. Ashlar with stone slate roof. Nave with aisles, clerestory, transeptal chapels, south porch, central west tower and chancel with north vestry/organ chamber. 4-bay nave and aisles with weathered plinth, weathered buttresses which are angled at corners, and castellated nave parapet. 3-light C19 windows to bays 1 and 3, 4-light C16 double- chamfered cavetto-moulded arched-light mullion window to bay 4. Porch in bay 2 has angled buttresses which terminate in ornate paired pinnacles with grotesque heads. Moulded surround to basket-arched door which has blind cusped arcade above. Each bay has 2 3-light mullioned clerestory windows. 3-stage tower with diagonal buttresses, moulded bands, clock in stage 2, 4-light belfry opening with hoodmould, castellated parapet and grotesque gargoyles. The west door and window are C19. 2-bay chancel with 2 3-light windows as above but with arched lights under a square head and a basket-arched lintel over priest's door. 5-light east window (C19) with rectilinear tracery. Interior: 4-bay nave arcade has double-chamfered arches on octagonal columns with moulded bases and capitals. A 5th smaller bay at the east marks the position of former rood loft, the door (which still exists) being served by a rood gallery in the north aisle. Braced oak camber-beam roof with gilded bosses; similar enrichment to aisle roof. Chancel arch on half columns, the north capital bearing a crudely carved head. Part of rood screen was re-used in the chancel screen and finely carved C16 oak parclose screens to Savage and Brereton chapels. Monuments: chest tomb with 2 alabaster Knights c.1460 and stone recumbent effigy of Sir Thomas Brereton, 1673, on a tomb chest with shields. C11 cross. G.V. and J.M. Chivers, The Parish Church of St. Mary, 1971.

Listing NGR: SJ8563488616