Description

RUFFORD CHURCH ROAD
SD 41 NE
7/6 Church of St. Mary the Virgin
11.10.1968

GV II
Parish Church, 1869 by Dawson and Davies (Pevsner). Red brick with bands and
dressings of sandstone and blue brick, slate roof with red ridge tiles. Nave
with north and south aisles, north-west steeple, chancel with north chapel and
south vestry. Gothic style. Buttressed west front with prominent steeple to
left of gable; gable wall mostly filled by three 2-centred arched windows of
2, 3 and 2 lights, in a stepped group, each with a plate-traceried multifoil
in the head, banded head and linked hoodmoulds; below the middle window a
gabled porch with 2-centred arched inner and outer doorways, the outer heavily
decorated, with shafts rising into deep impost bands of stiff-leaf carving,
and a moulded sandstone head with banded extrados, apex stone inscribed 'M',
and stone gable coping. Steeple has arched doorway at ground floor, chamfered
stone weathering at the level of the eaves, with a clock face under a hood on
the west side, set-back belfry stage with large plate-traceried belfry
windows, the arched heads springing from stiff-leaf carved impost bands, and
rising into gablets on each side of a steep pyramidal spire of stone. South
side of 5-bay nave has buttressed lean-to aisle, in the 1st bay a 2-centred
arched doorway with banded head and stone hoodmould, in the other bays small
arched windows alternately single and coupled, with banded heads, and 5
trefoil clerestory windows; vestry projects, and has a chimney rising through
the eaves at the junction of nave and chancel. Chancel has plate-traceried
3-light east window with a multifoil in the head; chapel has similar 2-light
window. Interior: 5-bay arcades of squat sandstone columns with very large
Romanesque-style capitals carved with differing forms of stiff-leaf foliation
enlivened by naturalistic figures, (e.g. pheasants, a sower, a squirrel);
2-centred arches with flat soffits and moulded extradoses; arch-braced
scissor-beam roof; 2 tier brass chandelier (dated 1763); marbled reredos,
pulpit, and font; various monuments, mostly from previous chapel and church on
this site, including: a small brass of a knight, Sir Robert Hesketh (d.1541)
(on north wall of chapel); a large monumental slab of alabaster portraying
Thomas Hesketh of Rufford (d.1463) and Margaret his wife, with their children
and Hesketh coat of arms at their feet, and lettering round the margin
including names; a large table monument with effigy of Sir Thomas George
Fermor Hesketh (d.1872) by Matthew Noble; at east end of south aisle a wall
monument to Lady Sophia Hesketh (d.1817), by Flaxman, copiously lettered, and
on north wall a tablet to Sir Thomas Hesketh (d.1778), with a verse by the
poet Cowper. History: replaced Hesketh Chapel recorded in 1346 and rebuilt in
1746. References: VCH Lancs VI; Pevsner; Rev.W.G. Procter, "The Manor of
Rufford and the Ancient Family of the Heskeths" Hist.Soc.Lancs. and Cheshire,
23, 1907, pp.91-118.

Listing NGR: SD4641715695

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26643806

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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