St Mary's Church is in Church End in the village of

Hale Hale may refer to: Places Australia *Hale, Northern Territory, a locality *Hale River, in southeastern Northern Territory Canada *Hale, Ontario, in Algoma District United Kingdom * Hale, Cumbria, a hamlet near Beetham, Cumbria *Hale, Greater Man ...

, Halton, Cheshire, England. The church is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...

as a designated Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. It is an active Anglican church in the deanery of Widnes, the archdeaconry of Warrington and the

diocese of Liverpool The Diocese of Liverpool is a Church of England diocese based in Liverpool, covering Merseyside north of the River Mersey, part of West Lancashire, part of Wigan in Greater Manchester, Widnes and part of Warrington and in Cheshire (it was origi ...

History

The tower dates from the 14th century and the rest of the church from 1758 to 1759, replacing an earlier church on the site. Restorations were carried out in 1874, when a northwest

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

was added, and 1903. In October 1977, the church was the victim of an arson attack, leaving only the walls and the tower still standing. As a result of the fire there is nothing remaining of the restorations other than the vestry walls. Following the fire, the foundations of a narrower,

timber-framed Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large woode ...

church were discovered. The roof and interior of the church were replaced by the architects Buxeby and Evans in 1979–80.

Architecture

Exterior

St Mary's is built in red

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

ashlar with a slate roof. Its plan is a rectangle in five bays with a west tower, a northwest

, a northeast

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d projecting chapel, and a south porch. The tower is square with corner

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...

es and a

crenellated A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). ...

. It has a west door with a window above it. At the bell stage are two-light louvred belfry windows on all sides. The windows on each side of the body of the church are round-headed. The east window is Venetian in style, glazed in large squares, with a cherub carved in the keystone. Hale Childe 4

Interior

The roof, dating from 1979 to 1980, is in varnished chestnut. It is panelled in five compartments, and heavily moulded. The west organ gallery, standing on Tuscan columns, is a replica of that destroyed in the fire. The furniture has been acquired from a variety of sources. The font, which consists of a bowl carved with cherubs, dates from the 18th century and spent a century in a garden. The oak pulpit dating from the 17th century stands on Tuscan columns; it came from

York Minster The Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Saint Peter in York, commonly known as York Minster, is the cathedral of York, North Yorkshire, England, and is one of the largest of its kind in Northern Europe. The minster is the seat of the Arch ...

. The

pew A pew () is a long bench seat or enclosed box, used for seating members of a congregation or choir in a church, synagogue or sometimes a courtroom. Overview The first backless stone benches began to appear in English churches in the thirt ...

s came from the demolished church of St Mary, Ince-in-Makerfield.

External features

In the churchyard is the grave of John Middleton, known as the ''Childe of Hale'', who was reputed to have been over tall. Also in the churchyard are the war graves of four soldiers of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and two of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

References