St Bartholomew's Church is in the town of

Wilmslow Wilmslow ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England, south of Manchester city centre. The population was 24,497 at the 2011 Census. History Toponymy Wilmslow derives its name from Old ...

, 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 I

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

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

in the

diocese of Chester The Diocese of Chester is a Church of England diocese in the Province of York covering the pre-1974 county of Cheshire and therefore including the Wirral and parts of Stockport, Trafford and Tameside. History Ancient diocese Before the si ...

, the archdeaconry of Macclesfield and the deanery of Knutsford.

History

The earliest documentary evidence of a church on the site is dated 1246. Nothing of this church remains but there is a crypt leading from the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

which pre-dates the present church. Most of the church was built in the early 16th century also, though it is possible that the lower part of the tower dates from the 15th century. The Hawthorne Chapel was added to the south side of the church in 1700, replacing a former

chantry A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings: # a chantry service, a Christian liturgy of prayers for the dead, which historically was an obiit, or # a chantry chapel, a building on private land, or an area i ...

dated 1520. There was a restoration in 1862-63 by Brakspear, in 1878.

J. S. Crowther Joseph Stretch Crowther (1820 – March 1893) (usually known as J. S. Crowther) was an English architect who practised in Manchester. His buildings are mainly located in Manchester, Cheshire and Cumbria. Life and career Crowther studied ...

added the

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 ...

and the south porch, and a clerestory was added to the chancel in 1898 by Bodley and Garner. The

parish register A parish register in an ecclesiastical parish is a handwritten volume, normally kept in the parish church in which certain details of religious ceremonies marking major events such as baptisms (together with the dates and names of the parents), ma ...

s begin in 1558 and the

churchwarden A churchwarden is a lay official in a parish or congregation of the Anglican Communion or Catholic Church, usually working as a part-time volunteer. In the Anglican tradition, holders of these positions are ''ex officio'' members of the parish b ...

s' accounts date from 1585.

Architecture

Exterior

The church is built from ashlar buff

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 ...

with a

Kerridge Kerridge is a village in Cheshire, England, part of the parish of Bollington. Kerridge borders the neighbouring parish of Rainow. It gives its name to Kerridge Ridge – one of the western foothills of the Pennines – by which it stan ...

stone-slate roof. The tower at the west end leads to a five- bay

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

with north and south

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, par ...

s, a chancel with chapels to the north and south, a vestry to the north of the north chapel, a south porch and the Hawthorne Chapel projecting from the south wall.

Interior

In the wall of the north aisle is an old

aumbry An ambry (or ''almery'', ''aumbry''; from the medieval form ''almarium'', cf. Lat. ''armārium'', "a place for keeping tools"; cf. O. Fr. ''aumoire'' and mod. armoire) is a recessed cabinet in the wall of a Christian church for storing sacred vesse ...

. The chapel at the east end of the north aisle is the Trafford (formerly Jesus) Chapel and that at the east end of the south aisle is the Booth or Prescott Chapel. In the Booth Chapel is a large tomb to the memory of Captain John Worrall. The chapel formerly contained the tomb of George Booth of Dunham Massey and his wife Elizabeth but this was removed in the 1861–63 restoration. The Hawthorne Chapel contains some early 18th-century panelling and old seating. In the chancel is a crypt chapel dating from around 1300 which is reached by a spiral staircase. It contains a triple

sedilia In church architecture, sedilia (plural of Latin ''sedīle'', "seat") are seats, usually made of stone, found on the liturgical south side of an altar, often in the chancel, for use during Mass for the officiating priest and his assistants, the ...

. In the chancel floor is the oldest

brass Brass is an alloy of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn), in proportions which can be varied to achieve different mechanical, electrical, and chemical properties. It is a substitutional alloy: atoms of the two constituents may replace each other wit ...

in Cheshire, dated 1460, in memory of Sir Robert del Booth and his wife, Douce. The chancel contains the tomb of Henry Trafford, rector of Wilmslow from 1522, his effigy dressed in ecclesiastical robes. In the north wall of the chancel are two recesses containing red sandstone effigies. Only fragments of the ancient stained glass remain. Three windows dated 1920 were designed by Dearle and made by Morris and Company. The two- manual organ was built in 1866 by Wadsworth, and rebuilt in 1897 by Alexander Young. It was rebuilt again in 1961 by Smethurst. The organ underwent a comprehensive restoration in late 2017 after £250,000 was raised to save and restore the organ. It was upgraded to a 3-manual specification with 42 speaking stops. There is a

ring Ring may refer to: * Ring (jewellery), a round band, usually made of metal, worn as ornamental jewelry * To make a sound with a bell, and the sound made by a bell :(hence) to initiate a telephone connection Arts, entertainment and media Film and ...

of six bells which were cast in 1733 by Abraham Rudhall II.

External features

In the churchyard is a former medieval buff sandstone font with an octagonal head, and a sundial dating from the late 17th century. The

lych gate A lychgate, also spelled lichgate, lycugate, lyke-gate or as two separate words lych gate, (from Old English ''lic'', corpse), also ''wych gate'', is a gateway covered with a roof found at the entrance to a traditional English or English-style ch ...

is dated 1904. It consists of open

timber framing 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 wooden ...

on an ashlar plinth with a Kerridge stone-slate roof. There are stone seats down each side. All these structures are listed at Grade II. In the churchyard is one of the oldest gravestones in Cheshire, dated 1596. The churchyard also contains the war graves of eight soldiers and a

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

sailor 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 ...

References

External links

Medieval stained glass information from CVMA
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Bartholomew's Church, Wilmslow Church of England church buildings in Cheshire Grade I listed churches in Cheshire English Gothic architecture in Cheshire Gothic Revival church buildings in England Gothic Revival architecture in Cheshire Diocese of Chester Wilmslow