Читать книгу Betjeman’s Best British Churches - Richard Surman - Страница 12
ОглавлениеASTBURY: ST MARY – the corbel heads lining the nave arcades are thought to represent some of the church’s medieval benefactors
Cheshire is crossed by many whose eyes are on a target beyond. It is on the way to Wales, on the route north and south, and for such travellers Cheshire does little to arrest the unseeing eye. It is flat except at the edges, and the roads are so good and the corners so hideously made safe that the visitor is almost hustled through it. To those, however, who treat Cheshire as an end rather than as a means, the county is surprisingly rewarding.
Elsewhere the county has an almost regular pattern. The background is always richly pastoral, and, from north to south down the centre, chemical works have followed the line of the three salt towns, Northwich, Middlewich and Nantwich. The smaller elements in the pattern are more ancient, and stem from Welsh as well as English settlement: there are few villages, and many scattered farms and hamlets.
The typical medieval parish church, especially in the south and west of the county, served a vast area, often as much as 30 square miles in extent. Malpas, Great Budworth, Bunbury, Acton and Astbury are churches of this kind. It is not surprising, therefore, that there should be so many interesting private chapels and former chapels of ease, nor that some of the ancient parochial churches of the county should be of such splendour.
It is not only, however, for size or interest that some Cheshire churches are remarkable. A great many of them are cleverly sited, using slight eminences to dominate their surroundings, and most of them are built of red sandstone, a stone never much used for houses. The typical 15th-century Cheshire church must have looked fine when its mouldings were sharp and the houses beneath it half-timbered. Now the detail is frayed or replaced, the surrounding black and white is yearly giving way to a modern uniformity, and it is to the untypical church that one is attracted, to Astbury, built of millstone grit, to the brick churches of Tushingham, to the Peovers, to curious Baddiley and freakish Birtles. Here, perhaps, in these untypical Cheshire churches, the county is now typified, a county that only reveals itself to those who leave the fast through roads, and rewards them handsomely.
ACTON † St Mary
1m/2km W. of Nantwich
OS SJ631530 GPS 53.0737N, 2.5511W
The great church, mostly of the 13th and 15th centuries, dwarfs its tiny village. The tower, rebuilt in 1757, is an early instance of Gothic Revival. The low screen and other chancel furnishings are partly late 17th-century, although they look older. There is a Norman font, a 15th-century canopied wall-tomb and some fine 17th-century effigies.
ASTBURY † St Mary
1m/2km S.W. of Congleton
OS SJ846615 GPS 53.1507N, 2.2314W
The great battlemented church makes the sloping village green look like a glacis and the lych gate like a barbican. Outside details are sharp and well-preserved because the building stone is millstone grit – rare in Cheshire. The N.W. tower became detached during a c. 13th-century rebuilding of the church, at which time the main body was moved further south. Inside are superb oak roofs, Perpendicular in style, but with inscriptions of 1616 and 1702 to indicate installation or possibly alteration. The N. aisle roof, though – with its overabundance of angels for the space it occupies – was brought from elsewhere and is likely to be 15th- or early 16th-century. There are 15th-century stalls, a screen, wooden eagle lectern, 17th-century altar rails, Royal Arms and a font with mechanical cover. Sir G. G. Scott used a light touch in the 1862 restoration.
BADDILEY † St Michael
4m/6km W. of Nantwich
OS SJ605503 GPS 53.0489N, 2.5905W
By farm lanes in flat country, St Michael’s is neither easy to find nor to interpret. The timber-framed chancel dates from 1308 and the brick nave of 1811 has a ceiled roof of 15th-century type. The tympanum is one of the most interesting in England – pre-Reformation in structure, with painted Creed, Commandments and a Coat of Arms dated 1663. It is some 20 feet square and is supported on an eight-foot screen; it divides the lower chancel from the nave with claustrophobic thoroughness. Elsewhere there is a W. gallery, box pews and a pretty pulpit.
ASTBURY: ST MARY – the woodwork throughout is exceptional, topped off by magnificent ceilings that are divided into patterns of rectangles by moulded beams with richly carved and gilded bosses
BIRTLES † St Catherine
4m/6km W. of Macclesfield
OS SJ862747 GPS 53.27N, 2.2074W
A freak brick church of 1840 with octagonal tower in a wooded parkland setting, it was built originally for the squire, Thomas Hibbert, but has been parochial since 1890. The inside is all self-confident vitality and Victorian treasure hunting. There is good 16th- and 17th-century Netherlandish glass and an ornate pulpit of 1686; the family pew and reader’s desk are made up of carved pieces and the baptistry is decorated with painted panels.
BUNBURY † St Boniface
3m/4km S. of Tarporley
OS SJ569580 GPS 53.1182N, 2.6452W
A large, well-sited 14th-century collegiate church, with nave arcades and wide aisle windows of about a hundred years later, St Boniface’s was well restored after severe war damage. Four of the original doors have survived, and there are also 16th-century oak doors with lattice panels in the stone screen of the chantry chapel. An important early alabaster effigy of Sir Hugh Calveley is in the chancel, and there are many interesting fittings.
CAPESTHORNE † Holy Trinity
6m/10km W. of Macclesfield
OS SJ840727 GPS 53.2513N, 2.2411W
The chapel of a great house, Holy Trinity was designed by William Smith and built in 1722. The drive to the house and chapel sweeps through a park with views over woods and a lake. The chapel itself, of brick with stone dressings, is rectangular, with a balustrade and cupola. The interior is somewhat darkened by injudicious Victorian glass, and there is a mosaic reredos of 1886–8. The pews were arranged college-fashion in 1877, and there is a raised family pew at the W. end, original rails and a good font.
CHELFORD † St John the Evangelist
6m/10km W. of Macclesfield
OS SJ819739 GPS 53.2624N, 2.2727W
A stone-dressed brick church of 1774–6; the tower was added in 1840. Inside are box pews, a splendid Art Nouveau pulpit, altar rails, choir stalls and mural decorations with sprays of flowers and saints, all by Percy Worthington, 1903, and some stained glass by Morris & Co. The W. Gallery is now a meeting room.
CHESTER † St John the Baptist
St John Street
OS SJ409661 GPS 53.1891N, 2.8856W
A Victorian exterior hides this dignified Norman cruciform church, with its early 12th-century arcades. There is a painted reredos by Heaton, Butler & Bayne to a John Douglas design, 1876. The church stands adjacent to a Roman amphitheatre and Grosvenor Park.
CHOLMONDELEY † St Nicholas
6m/10km N. of Whitchurch
OS SJ544516 GPS 53.0600N, 2.6809W
The private chapel of the castle, St Nicholas’s is set on a plateau in park – cruciform and built of brick and stone. The nave and walls encasing an older structure have been attributed to Vanbrugh, but in fact they were built by Fetherston in 1716, with transepts added in 1829. The hammerbeam roof is medieval, and the rails, screen and other furniture 17th-century. The Family Pew or State Gallery has cushions fashioned from robes worn at the coronation of William IV.
CHRISTLETON † St James
Suburb, 3m/4km E. of Chester
OS SJ440657 GPS 53.1856N, 2.8383W
In a rich, pretty village is W. Butterfield’s only complete Cheshire church, 1875–7. The late 15th-century tower was retained at Butterfield’s own request: ‘This country is an old country, but if we don’t take care it will soon be as new a one as America… You had better keep the old tower and so look a little different to the modern new churches which are generally so noisy and pretentious.’ What giants those Victorians were! His new church honours its site with warm red and white polychromy and excellent fittings.
CONGLETON † St Peter
Chapel Street, 11m/18km N. of Stoke-on-Trent
OS SJ859627 GpS 53.1618N, 2.2115W
This is an unspoilt town church of 1740–2, whose Gothic tower was added in 1786. The lower part of the 14th-century tower was retained during the 1786 Gothic tower restoration. It is plain outside and most pleasing within: galleries on three sides, supported on piers with columns above. There are fine box pews throughout, those in the galleries steeply tiered, a William III Arms, a particularly good brass candelabrum of 1748 and interesting 18th-century glass. The font is original, as are the altar rails.
CREWE GREEN † St Michael and All Angels
2m/3km E. of Crewe
OS SJ726553 GPS 53.0947N, 2.4092W
By Sir George Gilbert Scott, 1857–9, the church stands in one of Crewe Hall’s modest hamlets, a colourful church of red and blue brick, stone shafts and a steeply tiled roof. The interior with apsed chancel is polychromatic, with lots of good carving and excellent glass.
ELLESMERE PORT – HOOTON
† St Paul
Near Hooton, 3m/4km N.W. of Ellesmere Port
OS SJ367774 GPS 53.2906N, 2.9509W
By James K. Colling, 1858–62, and formerly part of the Hooton Hall estate, now on the fringes of Ellesmere Port, this is a prodigious Romanesque church of red and white ashlar with octagonal crossing tower. Many of the details are French and Italian, including the Lombardic frieze across the W. front. Inside are granite arcades and, over the crossing, an astounding ashlar dome. Rich fittings include good stained glass and the serpentine font, which won a medal at the Great Exhibition.
FARNDON † St Chad
6m/10km N.E. of Wrexham
OS SJ413544 GPS 53.0841N, 2.8775W
The church, set in a big riverside village, was badly damaged in the Civil War and was rebuilt, apart from the 14th-century W. tower. The remarkable 17th-century E. window depicts prominent local Royalists, pikemen and trophies of war.
LOWER PEOVER: ST OSWALD – the c. 14th-century bog oak chest in the south aisle was hewn from a single, solid piece of timber, pulled up from a peat bog in a partly fossilized state
FARNWORTH † St Luke
1m/2km N. of Widnes
OS SJ517877 GPS 53.3844N, 2.7275W
This is a village setting for a red sandstone church with work of all periods. There are good Tudor wooden ceilings in the chancel and S. transept, and the Bold Chapel, rebuilt in 1855, has good monuments, including one to Peter Patten Bold by Chantrey, 1822.
GAWSWORTH † St James
3m/4km S.W. of Macclesfield
OS SJ890696 Gps 53.2241N, 2.1661W
The Perpendicular church adjoins the garden earthworks of the Elizabethan Hall. The 17th-century monuments to members of the Fitton family, with life-like grouped effigies, are outstanding. The nave roof is panelled oak.
GREAT BUDWORTH † St Mary and All Saints
2m/3km N. of Northwich
OS SJ664775 GPS 53.2936N, 2.5043W
An imposing village church standing on a hill, St Mary and All Saints is a 14th- and 15th-century structure, of good proportions and very light inside. The 16th-century oak crown-post and wagon roofs are impressive; there are some 13th-century benches, and a medieval stone altar in the S. chapel.
LOWER PEOVER † St Oswald
6m/10km E. of Northwich
OS SJ743741 GPS 53.2639N, 2.3864W
The churchyard forms the green of a very pretty hamlet, with inn and school, at the end of a cobbled lane. Although tidied up by Anthony Salvin in 1852, it is still one of the finest examples in the county of a half-timbered church of c. 1370. The tower attached to it is 16th-century Perpendicular. The effect inside is of dark oak and whitewash. Very good 17th-century furnishings include box pews, some with the lower halves of the doors fixed to retain the rushes. Marquetry panels decorate a fine 17th-century pulpit.
LOWER PEOVER: ST OSWALD – the interior woodwork is a mix of ages, with a c. mid-14th-century nave arcade at its core and very well carved 17th-century pulpit, box pews and screen
MACCLESFIELD † St Michael and All Angels
Church Street
OS SJ917737 GPS 53.2603N, 2.1244W
Late 13th-century, but largely rebuilt by Sir A. Blomfield in 1898–1901; the church has a sumptuous early 16th-century three-storeyed S. porch, but is chiefly noted for an array of 15th–17th-century monuments, including one by William Stanton, 1696.
MALPAS † St Oswald
8m/12km E. of Wrexham
OS SJ486471 GPS 53.0195N, 2.7670W
The large handsome church, mainly late 15th-century, stands by a motte at the highest point in the village. It is spacious, light and well-proportioned, with a magnificent angel roof. The splendid interior contains a superb 13th-century iron-bound chest, misericords and box pews. The Cholmondeley and Brereton family chapels are separated from the nave by fine Perpendicular screens, and contain contrasting pre- and post-Reformation monuments from 1552 and 1605.
MARTON † St James and St Paul
3m/4km N. of Congleton
OS SJ850679 GPS 53.2088N, 2.2257W
Black and white, built c. 1370, this is the most complete timber-framed church in Cheshire. The tower lobby has massive posts, and the nave and aisles are under one roof. There are traces of a 14th-century Doom.
MOBBERLEY † St Wilfrid
2m/3km E. of Knutsford
OS SJ790801 Gps 53.3182N, 2.3162W
A green village setting with inn and cottages; the design is a typical late medieval one for E. Cheshire; the aisle walls have small three-light square-headed windows. There is a magnificent rood screen of 1550 bearing carved Coats of Arms, and on the screen pillars can be seen a carved Green Man. The roof is fine, with 15th-century carving on the king-posts, and there is 14th-century glass, now on the S. side of the chancel.
LOWER PEOVER: ST OSWALD – the church was re-roofed in 1852 and the exterior timberwork made more decorative
MOBBERLEY: ST WILFRID – the 13th-century church was aggrandized in the 15th and 16th centuries, when first the clerestory was added and then the sturdy, Perpendicular tower
NANTWICH † St Mary
Between Hospital Street and Monks Lane
4m/6km S.W. of Crewe
OS SJ652523 GPS 53.0670N, 2.5206W
A beautifully set large cruciform church built, like so many Cheshire churches, of soft red sandstone which weathers badly. The exterior is impressive, however, despite extensive restoration by George Gilbert Scott, with a striking pinnacled octagonal tower at the crossing. The vaulted interior is rare in Cheshire, with a superb chancel containing carved and gorgeously canopied late 14th-century choir-stalls with misericords.
OVER PEOVER † St Lawrence
In grounds of Peover Hall,
6m/10km E. of Northwich
OS SJ772735 GPS 53.2582N, 2.3431W
In a park, near splendid 17th-century stables and backed by the Tudor hall. The oldest elements of the church are the two chapels: the S. chapel is mid-15th-century, the ashlar N. chapel mid-17th. The N. chapel in particular is outstanding and the earliest true Classical work in the county. The nave was rebuilt in brick, with a pleasantly pitched roof, in 1811. The W. tower – red brick with stone quoins and dated to 1741 – was retained. Rich furnishings and excellent tombs with effigies create a delightful, haunting atmosphere.
PRESTBURY † St Peter
2m/3km N.W. of Macclesfield
OS SJ900769 GPS 53.2893N, 2.1505W
The church, by the pretty village street, looks 15th-century, but has 13th-century nave arcades. There are oak roofs, a Jacobean pulpit and, in the spandrels of the arcades, dainty paintings of the Apostles, dated 1719. In the churchyard is a small Norman chapel rebuilt in 1747 and restored in 1953.
RAINOW † Jenkin Chapel (St John)
Near Saltersford Hall, 2m/3km E. of Rainow; 3m/4km N.E. of Macclesfield
OS SJ983765 GPS 53.2863N, 2.0257W
This remote mountain chapel built in 1733 looks like a converted farmhouse; a low tower was added to the gable end in 1755. The roof is of heavy Kerridge slabs, the windows are square, sash and domestic, and there is a chimney stack halfway along the S. wall. The gallery, box pews and fittings are intact.
ROSTHERNE † St Mary
2m/3km S.W. of Altrincham
OS SJ742836 GPS 53.3495N, 2.3880W
In a large churchyard beautifully set between village and mere, the church is mainly Perpendicular outside, with a handsome Georgian tower of 1742–4. The chief delights here are the monuments: a 13th-century knight, a spirited wall monument to Samuel Egerton, dated 1792, by Bacon, and an affecting sculpture by Richard Westmacott Jnr of local woman Charlotte Lucy Beatrix Egerton, who drowned in Rostherne Mere on the eve of her wedding in 1845; an angel kneels over her recumbent figure.
SHOCKLACH † St Edith
6m/10km E. of Wrexham
OS SJ431501 GPS 53.0459N, 2.8490W
This is a small rustic church in the fields, with a double bellcote on the W. wall. The Norman S. doorway is crudely decorated with zigzags and lozenges. The church dates from at least the mid-12th century, but is perhaps Saxon in origin. The chancel was added in the 14th century. Inside are good, plain fittings and a pleasing 18th-century nave ceiling with rosettes; scratched on a pane of glass originally in the E. window, ‘I, Robert Aldersey was here on 1st day of October 1756 along with John Massie and Mr Derbyshire. The roads were so bad we were in danger of our lives.’
TUSHINGHAM † Old St Chad Chapel of Ease
4m/6km N. of Whitchurch
OS SJ527462 GPS 53.0117N, 2.7057W
Along a field path, half a mile E. of the Victorian church and parsonage which replaced it, the brick chapel of 1689–91 stands in a numinous oval enclosure. The superb interior has many things fashioned from Cheshire oak, including the W. Vaudrey gallery, decorated roof trusses, chancel screen, panelled pulpit, altar table with high-backed family pew to either side, and even an oak font!
WINWICK † St Oswald
3m/4km N. of Warrington
OS SJ603928 GPS 53.4308N, 2.5978W
St Oswald’s is mostly 14th-century, with a buttressed tower and large spire, and has richly panelled 16th-century roofs in the nave and S. chapel. The celebrated chancel is in the Decorated style, added by A. W. N. Pugin in 1847–8, with richly decorated barrel-vaulted ceiling and sedilia. Ornate iron screens separate the E. end chapels from the nave. In the Legh Chapel are good 16th–19th-century monuments, and part of a Saxon cross is in the Gerard Chapel. The enigmatic Winwick Pig, carved on the exterior of the tower next to a niche, is perhaps an emblem of St Anthony.
WRENBURY † St Margaret
5m/8km S.W. of Nantwich
OS SJ593477 GPS 53.0257N, 2.6073W
St Margaret’s is an early 16th-century Perpendicular church that overlooks a village green, its tower, nave and aisles all conspicuously battlemented. The interior is pleasing, and must have been very fine indeed before the renovations of the 1920s and 30s. The pink masonry looks, however, less scraped than is usual when the plaster is removed, and the box pews, though lowered, are of a good colour. There are crests on pew doors, hatchments, some signed monuments and a W. gallery.
