Church of St Mary and All Saints, Chesterfield

The Church of St Mary and All Saints stands in the centre of Chesterfield, a town in Derbyshire. Built mainly in the 14th century, it is the largest parish church in the Diocese of Derby and has a Grade I listing. The church’s most striking feature is its Crooked Spire, added around 1362, which twists 45 degrees and leans almost three metres off centre. The spire’s unusual shape has inspired local legends, including tales of the devil’s kick or sneeze. In 1994 the church became the UK’s only member of the Association of the Twisted Spires of Europe. A golden cockerel weather vane on the spire bears the names of past vicars. Inside, the church follows a traditional cruciform plan with nave, aisles, transepts and a chancel surrounded by four guild chapels. The font in the south transept dates from the Anglo-Saxon period, while the present building incorporates Early English, Decorated Gothic and Perpendicular Gothic styles. In the 1840s the architect George Gilbert Scott restored the church and installed a new ceiling and east window with stained glass by William Wailes. A 1905 T.C. Lewis organ, incorporating parts of an earlier 18th-century instrument, stands in the nave. The churchyard contains the remains of the medieval builders’ windlass, one of the few surviving examples of its kind. A peal of ten bells, cast in 1947, hangs in the tower, and the curfew bell once regulated the movements of Napoleonic parolees. The south aisle holds modern stained-glass windows depicting Chesterfield’s history, gifted in 1984. Visitors can see the twisted spire from the market place and walk around the church to view its varied stonework and the surviving fragments of earlier centuries.