St Paul's Church overlooks the
River Dee in
Boughton,
Chester
Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...
,
Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...
, England. The church is recorded in the
National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II*
listed building,
and, before its closure, was an
Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
parish church in the
diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Chester and the deanery of that diocese. In the series ''
Buildings of England'', the architectural historian
Nikolaus Pevsner stated that he regarded it as "the boldest of Douglas' church designs".
It ceased to be a church in 2016, when it was closed by the Diocese, as it was found to be in very bad repair. It was named by the
Victorian Society as one of the Top Ten Heritage Buildings at Risk for 2016.
History
The first church on the site was built in 1830 in
stucco
Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...
ed brick. Its style was
Italianate with round-headed windows and a northwest
campanile
A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...
. The architect was William Cole the younger. It was virtually rebuilt in 1876 to a design by
John Douglas, who added the south
aisle in 1902, and the spire in 1905.
Architecture
Exterior
The church is built in red brick with stone dressings and in
timber framing with brick and plaster panels. The roof has grey and grey-green
slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
s. Its plan consists of a through
nave and
chancel of four
bays
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a narr ...
plus an
apsidal
In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...
bay, a south aisle, a west porch and a
broach spire
A broach spire is a type of spire (tall pyramidal structure), which usually sits atop a tower or turret of a church. It starts on a square base and is carried up to a tapering octagonal spire by means of triangular faces.
File:Leicester Cathedral ...
at the west end.
[ Most of the windows are lancets.][
]
Interior
Pevsner commented that the strength of the interior lies in its timber-work. The walls are decorated with stencil
Stencilling produces an image or pattern on a surface, by applying pigment to a surface through an intermediate object, with designed holes in the intermediate object, to create a pattern or image on a surface, by allowing the pigment to reach ...
led patterns in the Arts and Crafts
A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...
manner.[ The wrought iron screen is by Douglas. The stained glass dated 1887 in the north aisle is by Kempe and that in the ]baptistry
In Christian architecture the baptistery or baptistry (Old French ''baptisterie''; Latin ''baptisterium''; Greek , 'bathing-place, baptistery', from , baptízein, 'to baptize') is the separate centrally planned structure surrounding the baptismal ...
is by Frampton. The rest of the stained glass was made by Morris & Co. Two of the windows were designed by Burne-Jones, others by Morris himself, and the latest windows dating from 1925 to 1927 are by Henry Dearle. The reredos
A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church. It often includes religious images.
The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular architecture, for ex ...
is a war memorial dated 1920 by H. G. Hiller. Also in the church is a monument from the older church dated 1845.[ The three-]manual
Manual may refer to:
Instructions
* User guide
* Owner's manual
* Instruction manual (gaming)
* Online help
Other uses
* Manual (music), a keyboard, as for an organ
* Manual (band)
* Manual transmission
* Manual, a bicycle technique similar to ...
organ was built by James J. Binns of Leeds.
See also
* Grade II* listed buildings in Cheshire West and Chester
*
References
Citations
Sources
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boughton, St Paul's Church
Church of England church buildings in Cheshire
Grade II* listed churches in Cheshire
Churches completed in 1905
19th-century Church of England church buildings
St Paul's Church, Boughton
St Paul's Church overlooks the River Dee in Boughton, Chester, Cheshire, England. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building, and, before its closure, was an Anglican par ...
John Douglas buildings
Diocese of Chester
Timber-framed churches
Wooden churches in England
1905 establishments in England