Church Of St Mary

WHIXALL CP WHITALL SJ 53 SW 6/214 Church of St Mary 28.10.60 - II Parish church. 1867 by G E Street. Red brick (English bond) with sandstone ashlar dressings; slate roofs with ornamental cresting and coped verges. Nave and chancel with full-length north aisle and vestry. Nave: in 4 bays on double- chamfered plinths; plain 2-light windows with plate tracery and shallow leanto porch with pointed arch in west bay. West window of 4 broad lancets with 2 roundels and one quatrefoil above. Lead-covered spirelet with louvred belfry at east end. Lean-to north aisle has 6 broad paired lancets with trefoil heads and similar window of 3 lights to east; eastern part incorporates vestry/organ chamber with shouldered arch to doorway. Chancel: in 2 bays on triple-chamfered plinth has string course and angle buttresses at east end. South side has lancet to west and window with plate tracery to east. East window of 3 lancets with sexfoil above. Interior: brickwork exposed with trussed rafter roofs to nave and chancel, latter boarded. North nave arcade in 4 pointed bays has circular stone piers with moulded plinths and capping. Pointed chancel arch-on corbelled responds. Fittings and furnishings including low stone screen to chancel, altar rails, stone pulpit and early English style, font at west end with clustered columns all by street. Late C18 or early Cl9 benefactors boards on north wall of north aisle and C17 font come from an earlier chapel. Font is hexagonal and dated 1608; ornamented with a scalloped shell, a lion rampant, birds, rosettes and fleur-de-lys; formerly with a Jacobean font cover. Brass plate in chanel records that present church was erected in 1867 "in grateful recognition of the character and services of John Allen, vicar of Prees and Archdeacon of Salop". Whixall was originally a dependent chapelry of Prees and the site of the previous chapel, which dated to C17, lies approximately a quarter of a mile to the south (N.G.R SJ 516 344). B.O.E. p.318; D. H. S. Cranage, The Churches of Shropshire, Part 8 (1906) p.740.

Listing NGR: SJ5179734861