Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary

This medieval chapel-of-ease, now the parish church, has been significantly altered and enlarged over the centuries. The church was enlarged in 1819, the chancel was rebuilt in 1877, and the entire structure underwent extensive restoration between 1884 and 1890.

The building is constructed of uncoarsed sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings, and features machine tile roofs with coped verges (several stepped) and ornamental cresting. The plan comprises a nave, south aisle and transept, north aisle and transept, a west tower, a chancel, and a north vestry and organ chamber.

The tower, dating to 1819, is built in two stages. The lower stage has diagonal buttresses at the north-west and south-west corners, a 4-centred 3-light window with spheric triangles to the heads above a 4-centred doorway with a label. The octagonal upper stage is rendered to resemble ashlar and features trefoil-headed rectangular louvred openings on each cardinal face, with 4 slender buttresses topped by crocketed finials. A moulded cornice and embattled parapet with pyramidal slate cap support a ball finial with weathervane.

The south aisle is buttressed in 4 bays and contains 3 square-headed Perpendicular-style 2-light windows of 1819 in the western bays, and a square-headed doorway with a 4-centred arch to the narrower eastern bay. A Perpendicular-style 2-light window of 1819 with a 4-centred head appears on the west wall, and an identical window is located on the south wall of the transept. The transept is earlier than the aisle and features alternating angle quoins, though its date is uncertain. The north aisle and transept display identical fenestration to the south, with the transept again appearing earlier than the aisle.

The chancel was rebuilt in 1877 in memory of Georgiana Fleming Morall and incorporates an earlier short sanctuary, indicated by a straight joint on the south side. The south side of the chancel has paired cusped lancets with elongated quatrefoils above, a stepped cill band, and a chamfered plinth that continues to the east wall. The east wall features stepped angle buttresses and a pointed window of 3 broad cinquefoil-headed lights with trefoils flanking the head of the centre light; head-stops decorate the hoodmould and a foliated cross crowns the gable. The north side has paired cusped lancets with quatrefoils above. The organ chamber has a square-headed 2-light cusped window on the east wall, while the projecting vestry features a 4-centred window with 2 cusped lights and a spheric triangle above, with a doorway in the west wall.

The principal interior feature is a late 15th-century arch-braced collar beam roof in 6 bays across the nave. The roof has cusped struts to cusped principal rafters creating quatrefoil and trefoil patterns, with 2 tiers of purlins and cusped windbraces. The 5-bay nave arcades, dating to 1888, have octagonal piers with pointed double-chamfered arches. A pointed doorway with a 4-centred window above occupies an infilled narrow segmental-headed arch, also of late 19th-century date. A late 19th-century pointed chancel arch is accompanied by a contemporary low stone screen with a scissor-braced roof. Late 19th-century fittings include a piscina, sedile, and a pointed single-chamfered doorway from the north transept to the vestry.

The fittings and furnishings, mostly of late 19th-century date, include benches, choir stalls, encaustic tiles in the chancel, and a pulpit made up from Jacobean panelling. Earlier pieces are a panelled octagonal font of 1826 and a medieval oak dug-out chest at the west end of the nave. Stained glass includes painted armorial glass of 1819 in the window above the tower doorway, mixed with early 20th-century glass in the aisles and transepts. The east window, dating to 1894 and made by Kempe, commemorates Cicely Caroline Mary Chapman, who died in 1893.

Monuments include late 18th and early 19th-century wall tablets and memorials to local families in the chancel and aisle, with 2 small brass plates of 1756 and 1763 on the east wall of the south transept. A late 18th-century hatchment is displayed on the south wall of the south transept, and a late 18th-century royal coat-of-arms hangs above the west doorway. Early 19th-century benefactors' boards are located in the tower.

Dudleston was formerly a dependent chapelry of Ellesmere.