Church Heritage Record 609272

Nave of five bays, shallow projecting sanctuary, west tower.

Nave and chancel 21m (65 ft) x 16m (50ft).

Until the 18th century the town consisted of three hamlets, Bollington, West Bollington and Bollington Cross.  The industrialisation of the area developed rapidly in the 19th century, boosted by the opening of the Macclesfield canal in 1831 and the railway 30 years later.  Since World War II the mines and mills have been mostly replaced by small businesses, and Bollington is increasingly becoming a dormitory town for Macclesfield and Manchester. Tourism is also important due to its handy location for the Peak District and Pennines; the town has a remarkable number of pubs.

The church was built in 1832-4 by Hayley and Brown for the Ecclesiastical Commissioners at a cost of £4,000, on land given by a local MP.  The churchyard was progressively enlarged.  There are a few gravestones laid flat to the north of the church which appear to slightly pre-date the construction of the church.  Since the site appears to have been given specifically for the construction of the church, these presumably either came for a burial ground somewhere in Bollington itself, or from the churchyards of the nearest church at Pott Shrigley or the medieval parish church at Prestbury. 

A vicarage and a bier house were also built to the south of the church, cut into the steep slope.  The vicarage was demolished in 1897, as it was damp and affected by the subsidence which has always been a problem for the church; the bier house was recently demolished for the same reason.  The present huge vicarage which replaced it was built some distance away; it has been renovated by the present incumbent.

Externally the church is unchanged, but the interior has been altered several times.  The church originally had a west gallery, a three-decker pulpit at the east end, and box pews.  The north and south galleries were added in 1854.  The interior was reordered in 1891, the box pews removed and a heightened sanctuary installed, and again in the 1930’s, when new choir stalls, communion rails and oak panelling were provided.  Further work was done here in the 1960’s, and the last overhaul of the interior and the heating system dates to the mid-1970s.

The basic style chosen is simple and consistent, c 1200.  The walls are pierced by large regularly spaced pointed lancets with splayed reveals and Y-tracery under a continuous hoodmould throughout.  Each bay has slim shallow buttresses of three weathering, and all corners have simple pinnacles rising from octagonal buttresses.  The parapets are continuously embattled around the church, the low-pitched nave roof just visible.  The typically small three-stage west tower is also embattled and has corner pinnacles, with pointed louvred belfry openings. The stage below has a 3-light Y-tracery window, above a rebated pointed doorway within the lower stage, the main access to the church.

The east elevation is the most complex.  The east window of the sanctuary is a triple stepped lancet, again with Y-tracery.  Underneath this is a projecting rectangular “baptistery”, actually the sacristy.  This might make one think that one was looking at the west end, especially as the small tower is not immediately visible from the approach to the east.  It has a simple doorway in the east wall.

An interesting external feature is the sequential lettering of the bays around the church, which apparently related to rows of graves.  The carved letters are just above ground level.  A negative aspect is the parlous state of the rainwater goods, with plastic pipes discharging onto the ground in some places.

The interior is high and spacious, well lit by the large windows. The church retains its early Gothic revival atmosphere despite the later changes. The walls and flat panelled ceiling are painted cream, flaking in places due to water ingress.  The galleries are painted light brown and have blind lancet panel decoration picked out in a darker shade. These are supported by quatrefoil iron piers which due to floor subsidence are in places under stress or almost hanging in the air.  They have fine brass handrails installed in the 1890s. The 1850’s pews have survived in these galleries, sweeping around the corners across the west gallery; they still bear numbers.  Above the pews the organ case and pipes rise to the ceiling, painted green, white and brown to match the gallery.

The nave was originally filled with box pews, but these were replaced by chairs in the 1890s during the Oxford Movement inspired changes which also removed the pulpit and emphasised the sanctuary (the sanctuary was lowered again in the 1930s).  The choir stalls date to the 1960s.  There are red carpets laid throughout, which makes it perhaps more difficult to appreciate the abrupt slopes, depressions and changes in level of the subsiding floor, particularly pronounced at the east end of the nave.  Along the bases of the walls, the floor has sagged in places revealing the foundations.

The west corners of the nave are screened off by pine panelling to form a vestry and sacristy. There is a Memorial chapel dedicated in 1926 at the east end of the nave focused around a marble war memorial (see below).  The font is placed at the east end of the south aisle of the nave, with a curtain over an original entrance in the east wall.  The small chancel is raised up three steps.  The twin pointed doorways flanking the altar which gave access to the sacristy behind are blocked up and plastered over.