History
The first building on the site was a chapel of ease in the parish of Acton. In about 1130 both Acton church and Nantwich chapel came under control of the Cistercian abbey of Combermere. The building of the present church started in about 1340 in the Decorated style, which was the style most commonly used in English church building at that time. The masons, who came from Yorkshire, used local sandstone, probably from Eddisbury near Delamere. Building work was interrupted between 1349 and 1369, probably due to an outbreak of the Black Death plague. By the 1380s the town's prosperity had recovered and building work resumed. This phase of construction was carried out by master masons associated with Lichfield and Gloucester cathedrals, now building in the Perpendicular style. The south transept was endowed as a chantry chapel in 1405. In the late-15th or early-16th century, the south porch was added, the nave roof was raised and the clerestory windows were added. Following the dissolution of the monasteries, six chantry chapels were removed in 1548. Between 1572 and 1577 the transept ceilings were renewed, and between 1615 and 1633 the church floor was raised because of flooding, a west gallery was built, and the walls were painted white, with the addition of scriptural texts. The church was briefly used as a prison for Royalists captured at the battles of Nantwich and Preston during the Civil War.
Between 1727 and 1777, the north and south galleries and a new west door were added, and windows were repaired. However, by 1789 the general structure of the church had deteriorated so much that it was said to be "so ruinous that the inhabitants cannot safely assemble". In the 19th century Sir George Gilbert Scott was brought in to direct a very extensive restoration. Amongst other alterations, he removed the galleries, the box pews, and many old memorials; the floor level was lowered and the transept roofs were pitched higher. Much of the eroded stone was replaced by sandstone from quarries at Runcorn, but not everyone was happy with the scale and nature of Scott's restoration. The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner complained about the replacement of a Decorated doorway and a Perpendicular window with corresponding structures in the style of the late-13th century. The local representative of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings at the time was of the opinion that "Very great injury was done to this Church in the Restoration ...". Clifton-Taylor complained about the way in which part of the church walls have subsequently been pointed. The last major work to be carried out on the church was in 1878, under the direction of local architect Thomas Bower, when the south porch was restored at a cost of £900 (£60,000 as of 2013).
Read more about this topic: St Mary's Church, Nantwich
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