Church Of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is a church dating back to the early 12th century, with a 15th-century porch and a substantial rebuilding in 1856 by J.C. Buckler. It is constructed of knapped flint with limestone ashlar dressings, and has a gabled old tile roof. The church comprises a chancel with a vestry, a nave with a porch, and a west bellcote. The chancel features a 3-light geometrical-style east window. The chancel side walls each contain early 12th-century roll-moulded lancet windows. The north vestry has mid-19th-century round-arched windows. The nave has three bays with 2-light curvilinear-style windows. The south porch has a pointed moulded doorway and a 15th-century three-light trefoil-headed window. The early 12th-century south doorway is adorned with a hood featuring grapes, leaves, and fruit over a zig-zag arch, with jamb shafts having scalloped capitals and quatrefoil imposts, and a mid-19th-century plank door. A 2-light curvilinear-style west window is flanked by tall buttresses, and the bellcote has a trefoil-headed lancet above two cinquefoil-headed bell openings.

Inside the chancel is a brass of Thomas Symeon and his wife, who died in 1522; a floor slab dating from around 1340, depicting a priest; and an alabaster floor tablet for Susanna Ackworth, who died in 1585. The vestry includes a wall monument to Thomas Barnard, who died in 1582. The early 12th-century chancel arch has a hood with flat reeded leaves over a moulded arch on imposts decorated with a star-in-square pattern. The jamb shafts, carved with basket weave (south) and interlace (north), have cable necks. The nave contains the top half of a Jacobean pulpit set on a 19th-century platform, a 12th-century font with a mid-19th-century cover, mid-19th-century pews and lectern, and an arch-braced roof. A brass tablet by Eric Gill commemorates Alfred St. George Hammersley, who died in 1929. The south porch holds some medieval floor tiles, a floor tablet to Thomas Pyrton, who died in 1701, early 19th-century wall tablets (for the Wiggins family), and 15th-century arch-braced collar trusses. Stained glass includes a fine east window and a south-east nave window by Clayton and Bell, dating from 1893. The church was given to Runcorn Priory, Cheshire in 1115, and the fine Norman features likely date from this period. J.C. Buckler sought to preserve these features during the Gothic restoration of 1856.