Church of St Mary

Church of St Mary

The Church of St Mary is built of sandstone from the Upper Coal Measures with slate roofs. It has twin naves, with the earlier nave to the south incorporating the south wall of the 12th-century church. Evidence of this early structure survives in residual pilaster buttresses and a wider section containing a round-arched south door, now blocked and positioned behind a 19th-century buttress. The arch retains one impost capital on the south side, decorated with grooves. Later 15th-century three-light windows with cusped heads replaced all but one small Norman window, which is now blocked and set low in the wall east of the blocked door, featuring a monolithic arched head. Above the later windows are an early cross head and another weathered stone from the early church. The east windows display cusped and panelled subarcuate tracery, with one restored in the 19th century. At the west end is a 19th-century four-light window with a door beneath a square label below it.

The north nave was added in the early 16th century, constructed of regular stonework on a chamfered plinth. It has an angle corner buttress and two three-light north windows with casement-moulded surrounds. The tower is inserted in the fourth bay at the west and rises in three stages with angle corner buttresses and strings at each stage. It features two-light bell openings and a crenellated parapet. The stair is positioned in the northwest corner with small lights flush with the west wall. There is a similar four-light west window with cinquefoil heads in each light and a door with a label beneath. A clock has been set in the centre stage.

Attached to the north is a later 20th-century stone-built range extending to a meeting hall, with associated toilets and kitchen.

The south nave and undifferentiated chancel spans six bays and has a roof of restored 15th-century arch-braced collar trusses, plastered below the rafters. The arches sweep down to bracketed wall corbels forming pseudo-hammer beams and have raking struts above the collars. The walls are plastered. The floor is raised by two steps into the parquet-floored sanctuary, with the altar raised a further step. The two roof bays at the east end feature a segmental vaulted ceiling divided by three intermediate ceiling trusses with moulded ribs and a ridge beam with gilded bosses, all executed in early 19th-century Gothic taste.

The north nave is divided from the south by a 16th-century four-bay arcade of octagonal columns carrying depressed arches. The independent roof of four bays has similar heavy late medieval trusses with arch-braced collars on similar bracketed timber corbels, but here the heavily moulded rafters and wall plates and three tiers of purlins are exposed. The tower is inserted into the western fourth bay and has a similar depressed tower arch to the north nave. The spandrels of the brackets are carved and coloured, and the soffits of alternate trusses have large carved animals. The truss of the second intermediate bay, however, has a carving of two knights on a balcony on the south side with the inscription 'DAVIT' beneath, and a jettied tower house on the north.

Fittings

The pulpit is located in the east arcade arch and consists of 17th-century carved floral panels redeployed in 1828–29, with an angled top approached by a 19th-century replica newel stair. The font, relocated under the tower, is of stone, large and octagonal, inscribed 'D.R T.P 1662', and has a good contemporary octagonal cover with a knob at each angle. The reredos and altar rail are of carved oak, dating to the early 20th century. Dado panelling surrounds the sanctuary, while 19th-century timber Gothic dado stands at the east end of the north aisle, its cusped tracery made of metal.

Glass

The church contains some good 19th-century figurative glass. The south nave east window depicts a Visitation with prophets below, by Kempe, commemorating Mary (Moyra) Trevor of Brynkinallt, who died in 1904 (see Mausoleum). The south window features Faith, Hope and Charity by Burlison and Grylls, commemorating the Hill-Trevor family. The north nave east window depicts the Ascension, a good memorial window for Robert Myddleton-Biddulph, who died in 1872, and his family. The north window shows a Resurrection by Bell & Son, Bristol, in greys, for Richard Myddleton, who died in 1913. To the west is a British Legion memorial window in blue and mauve by Jane Gray, 1994.

Furniture

The pews are 19th century, in oak. There is a chest with side arms and two locks dated 1736, inscribed with the names of churchwardens. A long 15th- to 17th-century oak document chest with iron fittings and a panelled chest inscribed 'SL 1675' are also present, along with a mid-17th-century communion table with bulbous legs. Against the east face of the tower pier stands an early 19th-century Gothic-style Commandment board of four panels, which served as the reredos until 1894.

Monuments

The church contains two remarkable monumental tombs by John Bushnell of London. To the left of the altar (a) is a wall monument of about 1675, featuring life-sized busts of Sir Thomas Myddleton, parliamentary sergeant-major general in the Civil War, and his wife Maria Napier, who died in 1666 and he in 1674, flanked by obelisks carrying flaming urns. The black field is curtained from a baldachino, with arms above and heads peering round the curtain on either side. The pedestalled busts stand on a moulded shelf, bracketed by a wide strapwork panel with a central Latin inscription added in 1722, all steadied by ill-proportioned naked running cherubs.

To the right of the altar (b) is a similar wall monument of about 1676. A black marble shelf supports the reclining figure of Elizabeth Myddleton (Wilbraham), wife of the third Sir Thomas, second baronet, suckling an infant, set in front of a draped black panel flanked by pedestalled urns. The drapery emanates from a baldachino, with heads on each side, and is crowned by arms. Below the shelf is a cushioned panel in a strapwork cartouche, set in front of a lower shelf with a fulsome inscription, also added in 1722. The cost of both tombs is recorded as £400.

On the south wall of the south nave (c) is another fine monument by Robert Wynne, sculptor of 'Ye Elaboratory', Ruthin, which cost £400. This white marble monument has a gadrooned and panelled base with a long inscription, set forward and carrying the life-sized recumbent figure of Sir William Myddleton, who died in 1717/18. Behind him stand his parents, fashionably dressed and flanking a corniced die with an urn crest, displaying on its front a swaddled child. The figures are flanked by Corinthian columns supporting an entablature, the cornice arched at the centre with roses on its soffit. Flaming urns stand above the columns, and the family crest is garlanded with a helmet and red hand crest above the arch.

(d) A large white marble panel commemorates Lieutenant-Colonel Arthur William, second Lord Trevor and Vice-Lieutenant of Denbighshire, who died in 1923, with his mezzo-relievo bust and arms below. Also present are (e)–(h) four rope-edged shields, each carrying an inscribed cross botonny for the Hill Trevor family of Brynkinallt; (i) a marble rectangular wall panel to Lieutenant Hillyar George Trevor, who died in 1914 at Givenchy, with his medals and citation set in a glazed recess.

In the north nave are five elaborate limestone Gothic aedicules, to (j) Charlotte Myddleton-Biddulph; (k) Ensign Robert Myddleton-Biddulph, who died in 1863 in Malta; (l) Charlotte Elizabeth Maude (Myddleton-Biddulph), who died in 1871; (m) Robert Myddleton-Biddulph of Chirk, Member of Parliament and Lord Lieutenant, who died in 1872, and Fanny (Mostyn Owen) his wife, who died in 1887, the first girlfriend of Charles Darwin; and (n) Gilbert Myddleton-Biddulph, son of the last.

(o) A Grecian wall tablet in white on grey by Bossom commemorates Richard Jebb, agent to the Chirk Estate, who died in 1840, erected by Viscount Dungannon; (p) a tapered white marble tablet to Richard Jebb, son of the last; (q) an oval marble panel in a pilastered frame with a draped urn over, all against a grey field, to Thomas Lovett, who died in 1801; (r) unfixed, a late medieval stone carved with a ragged relief figure clutching a heart and standing on a death's head. There is also a brass to Thomas Foulkes of New Marton, Salop, who died in 1752, and another to Dean Walter Balcanqual, the celebrated 17th-century divine, by W Stanton, about 1678.

Bells

The church has a ring of six bells dated 1803 by Rudhall of Gloucester.

Miscellaneous

A Royal Arms painted in oil on board, framed, displays an inclined royal shield with Royal Hanover in pretence (1816–37), fruity lion and unicorn supporters. A hatchment is set on the inner tower wall, having quarterly first and fourth Myddleton, second and third Biddulph, the arms granted to Lieutenant-Colonel Ririd Myddleton of Chirk Castle, who died in 1988.