History

Early History

The Domesday Book (1085) did not record the existence of any chapel or Church on the site at the time. In modern times the year of 1111 has frequently been quoted as the date of the foundation of the earliest church. The compiler of this can’t prove or disprove the accuracy of this assertion.

All available documents known to bear on this subject have been examined and several Church historians have been consulted, all with a complete lack of success. The only satisfactory way to confirm or deny this date is to discover the true date. This has not been done and it is doubtful if the information sought is in existence.

The earliest document in which the date 1111 is given is one by a former resident of Maw Green, Richard Lindop (1778-1871), who wrote reminiscences of his long life. Extracts from it were published in the parish magazine in 1906.

All we know with certainty is that a chapel was already in existence by the year 1249, when it was a chapel-of-ease to St Chad’s Wybunbury, in the Diocese of Coventry and Lichfield.

No history of the parish of Wybunbury has ever been written and no early records of it exist, hence it is improbable that any information relating to Church Coppenhall and its Chapel, prior to 1249, is discoverable.

The next date of significance is the 26th July 1373 on which day the Church became a separate benefice endowed with Glebe.

Coppenhall formed part of the Diocese of Coventry and Lichfield from its beginnings and remained so until 1541 when the new Diocese of Chester was created by Henry VIII. The Patrons of the living, however, continued to be the Bishops of Lichfield, the patronage being transferred to the Bishops of Chester only in the 19th century.

The First Known Building

The first known church was a timber framed structure measuring about fifty feet by thirty feet. Later the churches have both been built on the same site so that it can be said with confidence that parishioners have been worshiping continuously at the same spot for more than 700 years.

The Second Building

By 1820 it was felt that all that could be done in the form of patching the existing building had already been done and on the 24th of April 1820 a Vestry met to consider the necessity and expediency of taking down and rebuilding the Church in the present year.

Eventually a contract was signed for the work to be carried out by Joseph and Thomas Howard (bricklayers) and James and George Hough (carpenters) all of Middlewich. No architect was apparently involved in this work. Judging by criticisms of the period, this seems to have been self-evident, for the structure was one of the local buildings known as “The Three (dis)-graces”.

The church consisted of Chancel, Nave and Gallery. The Reading desk and front portion of the Gallery were evidently relics from the Roman Catholic period.

The Present Building (Begun 1884)

If in 1821 it had been possible to foresee the enormous increase in population that was to follow the decision of the Grand Junction Railway Company to establish a railway works in the district, it is safe to say that the 1821 Church would never have been built. It soon became evident that the existing building was inadequate for the demands made on its accommodation.

In consequence, a much larger church, designed for 750 sitting instead of 250 was planned soon after the late Canon William Cawley Reid became Rector in 1880 and the dedication stone was laid for the new chancel in May 1884, The Architects being the firm of James Brooks, Son and Adkins of London.

The position of the existing altar was near the end of the present Nave, and a new chancel was constructed further to the East of – and consequently outside – the old one. By 1886 the new Chancel and Transepts had been constructed.

The Nave was not completed until 1907, the Architect being J. Standen Adkins of the above firm. Services continued all this time without interruption apart from one period of a fortnight in very cold weather – it being impossible to heat the building at that stage – when parishioners attended daughter Churches.

The cost of the entire fabric was about £15,000 and for a small far from wealthy parish to have raised such a sum is quite a remarkable achievement.

Description of the Building

The style of the Church is a free rendering of that prevailing on the early years of the thirteenth century (the approximate date of the original chapel).

It consists of a Chancel, Lady Chapel, Sacristy, Transepts, Nave with side aisles, Narthex, Choir Vestry, West Porch and a temporary porch in the south-west corner. It is surrounded by a fleche sheathed with copper which has long since turned a pleasant green (“The church with the green spire”). This fleche is not merely ornamental, for it is the ventilation system for the building, housing also in its base the Sanctus bell. Its base also forms a tie for the other roof structure.

The Church is built of Ruabon bricks with pillars and dressings of Runcorn stone. The roofing is of Oregon pine covered with Tilberthwaite slate.

When the design was shown by the architect at a London exhibition, a professional critic described it as a “model type of Gothic design for a building of this class, reproducing with mere copyism the true spirit of mediaeval architecture, solid, unpretentious, picturesque in outline and entirely free from uncalled-for or superabundant ornament.”

At some future date a Tower and Spire were planned to occupy the south-west corner. To this end a huge concrete raft 27 feet square and 4ft. 6 ins in thickness was laid reaching down to 7ft. 6 ins below ground level.

For temporary purposes this was built up to ground level and a wooden porch was constructed on it. Evidence of the unfinished nature of the building could be seen on examining the brick walls inside the temporary Porch.

The Tower and Bells idea was scrapped around 1976 and the Porch completed in brickwork.