Church Heritage Record 609208

The Church of St. Mary the Virgin was built in 1883-1884 at a cost of £2,465 towards which Mr. William Cunliffe-Brooks, Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for East Cheshire contributed the handsome sum of £1,000. A considerable portion of the remainder was provided by the Rev. Canon George Heron M.A, Rural Dean of Bowdon, who himself laid the memorial stone of the church. The new church for Partington was designed by Scottish architect George Truefitt (1824–1902) based in Bloomsbury Square, London. Messrs. Southern and Sons builders of Salford were the contractors for the work.

St. Mary’s Church is sandstone rock faced with ashlar dressing and plain rosemary clay tile roofs, built in the North European Gothic style with plinth and buttresses. The widows are pointed arches with plain surrounds. The nave and chancel are under a continuous roof, with a distinctive tower containing the original vestry at the southeast corner, and a porch with main entrance on the south side. A church hall was added on the north side in 1975 and rebuilt in 1991, and whilst of no special architectural interest the hall does not detract from the original composition and main approach to the church. The newly built extension comprises a large parish room, kitchen, toilets, a new vestry, small office and second larger office on the first floor.

The east end has a 3-light window with datestone beneath, and 2- light pointed leaded archway windows to the old vestry now containing the church heating system. The south side has a gabled porch entrance with pointed arched doorway containing two solid wooden exterior doors, giving way to a new single wooden door with large glass windows. The south side has a single arched window to the west of the entrance and three arched windows to the right. The west end has two tall pointed archway windows of patterned antique coloured glass. The north side has three single arched windows, the remainder covered by the 20th century extension.

The 3-light window in the chancel comprises stained glass by Percy Bacon of London with a central depiction of Christ on the cross and further biblical scenes. The central window on the south and north side has memorial stained glass dated 1913. These windows depict ‘Jesus Light of the World’ based on William Holman Hunt’s painting to the north side and ‘Jesus the Good Shepherd’ to the south side. The south side has 4 bays to the left of the tower which comprise the Garden of Remembrance for cremated remains with large red marble granite memorial plaques.

The unusual tower is unbuttressed and comprises 3 stages, with a plain pointed arched door to the south to access the old vestry. The first stage has a quatrefoil window on each side, below a blind gable. The bell stage is ashlar stone and set back, above which is a timber framed bell enclosure with openings under cusped heads containing trefoils. Originally the tower contained three bells, cast by the well-known founder, John Taylor of Loughborough, however these were reportedly removed and sold to another church in 1990. A modern speaker system is now used to replicate the bell’s ringing. The tower is completed with a tiled hipped square spire. 

The chancel is raised significantly above the nave, and instead of being divided from it by single arch, as is common, the separation is by very unusual ashlar triple arch with chamfered pointed openings, supported by circular shafts of polished pink granite, with freestone exaggerated Romanesque capitals and bases. These shafts are hewn stone from a quarry in Aberdeenshire, and were the gift of Mr. William Cunliffe-Brooks, M.P. The chancel has cusped panelled wooden reredos, an open altar table and wooden altar rails that can be moved into position on the lowest chancel step to allow for easier access for communicants. Other 20th century furniture includes two carved wooden chairs, a lectern and credence table. There are memorial brasses dated 1908 and 1923, and war memorial brasses for 1918 and 1945. 

The walls are rendered and painted white. The nave floor is of parquet wood whilst the chancel, originally tiled, is now carpeted. The nave contains 124 wooden seats with cinnabar red upholstered seating pads. Modern up-lighting has replaced the original hanging lamps. A data-projector in the nave projects words and images onto a screen to the left of the archway for worship services, which can be retracted when not in use. The chancel roof has cusped principal wooden rafters, cambered laminated cross-beams, and kingposts with curved braces. The Nave has similar roof structure, with plain principal rafters. Plain doorways connect the nave to the St. George’s extension (church hall) and the chancel both to the new vestry and the old vestry at the base of the tower. The main entrance on the south side has a pointed arched doorway.