St Mary's Church, Ellesmere

St Mary’s Church stands on a hill above the market town of Ellesmere in Shropshire. It is an active Anglican parish church built of local sandstone with slate roofs. The building has a cruciform plan with a tower at the crossing, north and south transepts, aisles and a chancel with chapels. The tower rises in two stages and is topped by pinnacles, gargoyles and a battlemented parapet. The churchyard contains a Grade II-listed sundial of 1726 and a stone war memorial unveiled in 1920.

The church’s fabric spans nine centuries, from Norman doorways to 19th-century restorations. George Gilbert Scott rebuilt the nave and transepts in 1848–49, adding a stair turret. Later, Arthur Blomfield and J. Loughborough Pearson worked on the chapels and chancel. The roof of the south chancel chapel is regarded as one of the finest in the county, with carved stone corbels and heraldic bosses of the Stanley family. The stained glass includes work by Heaton, Butler and Bayne, Burlison and Grylls, and William Wailes.

Inside, clustered piers carry the nave arcades and the crossing is in Early English style. The chancel contains a Perpendicular triple sedilia and a 19th-century font carved with scenes of Christ’s Passion. There is a three-manual pipe organ built in 1928 and rebuilt in 1997, and a ring of eight bells cast between 1727 and 1799. The oldest monument is a 14th-century recumbent figure of a scrivener, now mounted on the north chapel wall.