Church Of St Mary (C Of E)

The Church of St Mary is a Church of England building constructed in 1840 for the Church Commissioners by the Manchester architectural firm of Hayley and Brown. The chancel was added in 1877 by J. M. and H. Taylor, also of Manchester. The church is built in an Italian Romanesque style, an unusual choice for a Commissioners' church of this period when Gothic was more commonly employed.

Materials and Construction

The church is built of coursed dressed buff sandstone with ashlar dressings and slate roofs.

Plan

The building comprises a shallow west tower, south porch, galleried three-bay nave, square-ended two-bay chancel, and north organ loft with vestry.

Exterior

The elevations rise from a low projecting plinth. The west end features a shallow central tower with a Romanesque recessed portal at its base, surmounted by three windows (the central one glazed), and a circular bell louvre above. Square turrets rise the full height of the tower and are topped with canopies with pyramidal roofs, which flank a small central pediment. To either side of the tower are paired windows arranged one above the other.

The windows throughout are semi-circular arch headed with set-back surrounds. A square string course runs at the level of the window base and continues over each window. The upper courses of stonework project with a dentil corbel course. These arrangements continue on the secondary elevations, which are separated from the western elevation by square corner turrets that rise to the gable parapet of the pitched roof.

The nave is of three bays, divided by vertical lesenes. The westernmost bay contains a blind window above a doorway and one tall window, whilst the other two bays have paired tall windows. A square sill band continues over the arched door opening. The south doorway has a porch with a pitched timber and slate roof on low stone walls. There is a small gallery window with projecting hood mould in the returns between the nave and chancel.

The chancel has shallow buttresses with weatherings in the angle with the nave and between the two bays. Each bay contains paired tall windows with splayed reveals, under a uniting hood moulding with pendant stops and with a sill band. The east wall is gabled, with three windows, the central one taller, each with projecting hood mould and with a sill band. The organ loft is located in the north angle of nave and chancel, gabled and with two tall windows, whilst to the east the vestry projects north from the chancel under a catslide roof.

Interior

The roof is constructed of trusses with a collar and king post, and tie beam with queen struts. The interior is ceiled and plastered. Raked wooden galleries supported on slender quatrefoil cast iron columns around three sides of the nave retain box seating. The nave has wooden pews fixed to a low platform with a central aisle.

The chancel is separated from the nave by a semi-circular arch with a plain moulding supported by short Tuscan columns resting on stone corbels. The chancel is accessed through a low stone balustrade of colonettes, via central iron gates and steps up. The chancel has fixed wooden choir benches and a good tile mosaic floor, with the organ by Ashworths in the organ loft. The sanctuary is raised with a wooden altar rail, and was carpeted at the time of inspection.

The sanctuary has north and south paired arched niches with a central colonette with ornamental capital, the eastern arches containing piscina and sedilia to north and south respectively. Similar arches on the east wall contain smaller paired semi-circular arches with a central colonette with ornamental capital, and flank the reredos. The reredos is contained within a taller niche of a semi-circular arch under a pediment, and supported by barley-sugar colonettes with ornamental capitals. The reredos has a circular mosaic panel of gold tesserae with a stone cross, and similar panels in the tympana of the east wall niches contain, to the north, the letters IHS, and to the south an Alpha and Omega.

Responds with shaft rings rise to the full height of the east wall, separating the central very tall window from a similar but shorter window on either side, all in deep reveals. The jambs of these flanking windows also have responds with shaft rings and ornamental capitals. All three windows have stepped recessed semi-circular arched mouldings. The paired windows in the south elevation of the chancel have mullions with a respond with shaft rings and pyramidal capital, and the arch heads have set-back surrounds with pendant pyramidal stops.

Fittings and Glazing

Most of the glazed windows in the church contain stained glass, some signed by George Cooper-Abbs and Cox & Edgley, many with dedications and all of good quality. A tall wooden font cover and wooden lectern were presented to the church on the opening of the new chancel in 1877. Other fixtures include a stone font and pulpit, wooden lectern, and various memorial tablets. In particular, a monument to benefactors James and John Ashton, dated 1844 by Knowles, is of unusual design.

The architectural interest of the building is enhanced by the good survival of minor fittings, such as the hoops and trays for storing umbrellas on the ends of pews, and original iron door furniture. The single bell in the tower is dated 1932 and is by Taylors of Loughborough.

History

A tablet on the east wall of the nave records that the land for the church was given by John Ashton (1800-1844), a member of a local mill-owning family noted for keeping its mills open during the cotton famine. Another tablet beneath the west gallery states that the erection of the church was chiefly due to the efforts of Reverend William Johnson, who died in 1840. An online archive records the dates from design to building as 1836-1840. This is also supported by evidence including a jug presented to the church and dated 1839.

A second tablet below the west gallery records that the current chancel, vestry, organ chamber, south porch and west entrance were begun in 1876 and consecrated in 1877 by William Jacobson, the Lord Bishop of Chester, having cost £2,800 by public subscription.

Minor changes to the layout of the nave might have been coincidental with the new chancel; the font and some seats were formerly in the central aisle, and matching wooden pulpits on either side of the central aisle do not survive. Map evidence suggests that the extension of the graveyard to the north took place between 1898 and 1910.

In the late 20th century the western entrance lobby became a narthex, with a small wood and glass screen just extending under the centre of the western gallery. A toilet has been inserted at the base of the north gallery stair, and an external ramp provides level access to the north door. These items are of lesser interest. At the time of inspection the church was still in regular use by a thriving Anglican congregation.

Significance

St Mary's Church is designated at Grade II as a mid-19th century Commissioners' church representing a thoughtful design by Hayley and Brown of Manchester. Its architectural interest is enhanced by its Romanesque style, rather than the Gothic more commonly used for these buildings. The later additions by J. M. and H. Taylor of Manchester are sympathetic to the original design and style, of similarly good quality and with more decorative detail, contributing to the architectural interest.

The Commissioners' churches are of historical interest as the largest ever state-funded wave of church building in England, and the single largest initiative since the Reformation. The good level of survival of interior elements including fixed pews and galleries with box seating allows the original purpose of the building—to accommodate large numbers—to be read. The addition of the larger chancel in 1877 illustrates changes in liturgical thinking since the church was built, with a reduced emphasis on sermons in favour of the Eucharist.