- St Michael and All Angels, Middlewich
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St Michael and All Angels Church, Middlewich
St Michael and All Angels Church, Middlewich,
from the southeastLocation in Cheshire Coordinates: 53°11′33″N 2°26′41″W / 53.1926°N 2.4446°W OS grid reference SJ 703 662 Location Middlewich, Cheshire Country England Denomination Anglican Website St Michael and All Angels, Middlewich History Dedication St Michael and All Angels Architecture Status Parish church Functional status Active Heritage designation Grade II* Designated 5 December 1986 Architectural type Church Style Norman, Perpendicular Specifications Materials Red sandstone Administration Deanery Middlewich Archdeaconry Chester Diocese Chester Province York Clergy Curate(s) Rev Liz Woode, Rev Thia Hughes Priest(s) Rev Simon Hamill-Stewart Laity Reader Jacqui Briscoe, Steve Broadfoot, Christine Hamill-Stewart,
Lorraine Reed, Tony WoodeDirector of music Jeremy Coles Churchwarden(s) Linda Webber ,Steve Bailey,
Fiona LoneyParish administrator Pat Pugh St. Michael and All Angels, Middlewich is the parish church for the town of Middlewich in Cheshire, England. It stands at the junction of the A54 and A533 roads.[1] The church has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building.[2] It is an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Chester and the deanery of Middlewich. Its benefice is combined with that of St John, Byley.[3] In 1947 the architectural historian Raymond Richards described the church as "the one building, in a depressing town, which is mellow and dignified".[4]
Contents
History
Parts of the church date from the 12th century, possibly the lower portion of the tower, but more likely the narrow arcade of the east bay.[5][6] Most of the church was built during the period between about 1480 and 1520[7] when the nave clerestory was added, new windows were inserted, the Lady Chapel was built at the east end of the south aisle and a two-storey porch was added to the south side. In the following century the Kinderton chapel was added at the east end of the north aisle.[4] The church was damaged during the Civil War, particularly during the First Battle of Middlewich in March 1643, when the Royalists used it as a place of sanctuary.[4] In 1801 restorations were carried out, including moving the Venables screen into the tower. In 1857 a window was added to the memory of John Hulse.[5] In 1857–60 the north aisle and Kinderton chapel were remodelled by Joseph Clarke.[7] This was a part of a general remodelling of the church, which included removing the whitewash from the interior of the church to reveal the sandstone appearance seen today.[8]
Architecture
Exterior
The church is built of sandstone and is mainly Perpendicular in style.[4] The plan of the church consists of a tower at the northwest, a four-bay nave with a clerestory, broad north and south aisles, a two-bay chancel and a south porch. At the east end of the north aisle is the Kinderton chapel, built in the 16th century, and at the east end of the south aisle is a chapel which was formerly a Lady Chapel.[7]
Interior
The timber roof of the chancel was originally built by Sir William Brereton in 1621. This was replaced in 1951 with a design copying the original.[8] The Kinderton Chapel (also known as the Bostock Chapel) is now used as the rector's vestry, and it contains the oldest monument in the church, a brass dated 1591 in memory of Elizabeth Venables, wife of Baron Kinderton. A Jacobean screen with the carved arms of the Venables family was originally at the entrance to the Kinderton chapel but is now inside the tower.[8] The organ was built in 1908 by Conacher and radically rebuilt in 1964 by Rushworth and Dreaper.[9] The ring consists of eight bells. Three of these were cast in 1711 by Rudhall of Gloucester, one bell was cast in 1841 by Thomas Mears II at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, and the other four are dated 1897 by John Taylor and Company.[10] The parish registers begin in 1604 and the churchwardens' accounts in 1636.[4]
External features
In the churchyard is a sundial probably dating from the late 18th century. It consists of a vase baluster on a circular stone step on brick base. The copper dial has a date which is illegible and the gnomon is broken. It is designated as a Grade II listed building.[11]
Priests and Vicars of Middlewich
Priests ~1200 Warin 1342 John de Leysthorp 1429 Thomas Thikenes ~1250 Thomas 1349 John Bele 1459 John Heynes 1306 Richard Tuchet 1352 John Folvill 1484 John Bressnel 1329 John de Offord 1361 Thomas Fraunceys 1494 William Sutheworthe 1330 Andrew de Offord 1402 John Tochet Vicars 1504 William Bithewaithe 1695 William Handford 1877 Francis Minton 1504 John Fornebye 1702 John Cowper 1902 Hesketh France Hayhurst 1525 Amerus Burdet 1719 John Cartwright 1904 Arthur Gascoigne Child 1563 John Knightley 1731 John Swinton 1921 Wilfrid Rawton Ingham 1568 Peter Presland 1737 Robert Moreton 1937 Albert William Harrison-Harlow MC 1580 William Kinsey 1780 William Kyffin 1947 George Richardson Kemp 1616 Robert Halliley 1787 Joshua Powell 1952 Leslie Edgar Evans 1646 Thomas Langley* 1797 William Henry Heron 1957 Laurence Roy Ridley 1647 Matthew Clayton* 1811 James Stringer 1969 Eric Alexander Owen 1662 Lawrence Griffith 1819 Isaac Wood 1971 Eric William Cox[12] 1680 Thomas Faulkner 1864 Henry Goodwin *denotes joint ministers
References
- ^ Middlewich, Streetmap, http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=370350&y=366250&z=0&sv=SJ703662&st=5&mapp=map.srf&searchp=ids.srf, retrieved 17 January 2011
- ^ "Church of St Michael and All Angels, Middlewich", The National Heritage List for England (English Heritage), 2011, http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1138795, retrieved 2 May 2011
- ^ St Michael & All Angels, Middlewich, Church of England, http://www.achurchnearyou.com/middlewich-st-michael-all-angels/, retrieved 17 January 2011
- ^ a b c d e Richards, Raymond (1947), Old Cheshire Churches, London: B. T Batsford, pp. 234–237
- ^ a b Charles Frederick Lawrence (1895), History of Middlewich, Eachus and Son, Sandbach
- ^ St. Michael and All Angels, Middlewich, The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, http://www.crsbi.ac.uk/search/county/site/ed-ch-middl.html, retrieved 13 June 2010
- ^ a b c Salter, Mark (1995), The Old Parish Churches of Cheshire, Malvern: Folly Publications, p. 52, ISBN 1-871731-23-2
- ^ a b c About the Church, St Michael and All Angels Church, Middlewich, http://middlewichparishchurch.org.uk/page4.html, retrieved 3 October 2007
- ^ Middlewich, St. Michael, British Institute of Organ Studies, http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N04308, retrieved 11 August 2008
- ^ Middlewich S Michael, Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers, http://dove.cccbr.org.uk/detail.php?searchString=middlewich&Submit=++Go++&DoveID=MIDDLEWICH, retrieved 11 August 2008
- ^ "Sundial south of west bay of Church of St Michael and All Angels, Middlewich", The National Heritage List for England (English Heritage), 2011, http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1229502, retrieved 2 May 2011
- ^ Richards, Raymond (1971), Old Cheshire Churches: A Survey of their History, Fabric and Furniture with Records of the Older Monuments
External links
Gallery
Categories:- Church of England churches in Cheshire
- Grade II* listed buildings in Cheshire
- Grade II* listed churches
- Norman architecture
- English Gothic architecture
- Middlewich
- Diocese of Chester
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