All Saints Church, Church Lawton

All Saints’ Church stands on a low mound beside Lawton Hall in the small village of Church Lawton, Cheshire. It is a Grade II* listed building and an Anglican parish church in the Chester diocese. The church dates from the late 11th century and may have been founded by Hugh de Mara, Lord of Lawton. Local tradition says the body of St Werburgh rested overnight on this spot in the 8th century. In 1652 lightning struck the church, killing eleven people inside. A fire in 1798 destroyed the nave, which was rebuilt in brick by 1803. The rebuilt church has a west tower of red and buff sandstone in Perpendicular style. Carved on the tower’s south face are a chalice and the initials I. B., those of the priest John Bybber. Inside, a 1717 gallery survived the fire and still holds a two-manual organ installed in 1873. The nave contains the royal arms of George III and six Lawton family hatchments. Under the gallery lie thirteenth-century flooring tiles found during the 1874 restoration. The churchyard holds war graves of two First World War soldiers. Nearby, in the rectory garden, stands an eighteenth-century font. A Norman doorway, rescued from the 1798 fire, has been reset in the south wall of the nave. The tower’s bell openings feature Y-tracery, and the ring includes bells by Richard Sanders and John Taylor and Company. Parish registers begin in 1559, and churchwardens’ accounts survive from 1691.