All Saints Church is a redundant

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

church in the village of Harthill,

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, England. It 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, ...

as a designated Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. As of 2010 the church is being converted into a community facility for the village and locality.

History

A chapel on this site is first mentioned in 1280. It is likely that this earlier church was timber-framed. The present church was built in 1609. Restoration was carried out in 1862–63, and at this time a

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colony, English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spen ...

was added to the north side and a larger belfry was erected.

Architecture

The church is built in

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

red and buff

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

with a Welsh slate roof and a stone ridge. The 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 ...

and

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

are in one range, and there is a south porch and a north vestry. Inside the church is a hammerbeam roof. The windows are square-headed, those on the sides having four lights, while the east window has six lights with a transom. The porch contains churchwardens' inscriptions date 1611 and 1775. Inside the church is the framework of a screen bearing the date 1609. The stained glass includes the east window dating from 1885 to 1887, which was designed by Carl Almquist and made by Shrigley and Hunt. A north window in the chancel, dated 1908, is by Mary Lowndes.

External features

In the churchyard to the east of the former church is a

mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type o ...

dated 1885 which is constructed in

buff sandstone with

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

dressings. It is rectangular in plan with a stepped hipped cap surmounted by a slab with a cross upon it. On the long sides are six short

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s and on the short sides four pilasters. The side panels are inscribed with memorials to members of the Barbour family of Bolesworth Castle. Also in the churchyard is a sandstone cross from the 11th or 12th century, and a

sundial A sundial is a horology, horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the position of the Sun, apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the ...

dated 1778 consisting of a sandstone column on an old millstone. All these structures are listed at Grade II. North of the church are two war graves of soldiers of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

References

External links

Photographs by Craig Thornber
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harthill, All Saints Church Grade II* listed churches in Cheshire Church of England church buildings in Cheshire Former Church of England church buildings Former churches in Cheshire 19th-century Church of England church buildings Churches completed in 1863

History

Architecture

External features

See also

References

External links