St John the Evangelist's Church, Winsford

St John the Evangelist’s Church stands in the village of Over, Winsford, Cheshire. Built of Runcorn sandstone under a grey slate roof, it follows the Decorated style. The plan includes a five-bay nave with clerestory, north and south aisles, a chancel, a tower at the southwest corner and a vestry at the northeast. The tower rises in three stages to a 140-foot spire topped by a wrought-iron cross. Inside, stone panelling at the east end frames an alabaster model of the Last Supper. Hugh Cholmondeley, 2nd Baron Delamere, commissioned the church in 1860 as a memorial to his wife Sara. The architect was John Douglas, then early in his career and working at Vale Royal Abbey for Lord Delamere. The church was consecrated in June 1863 by John Graham, Bishop of Chester, marking Douglas’s first church design. In 1961 a new choir vestry was added for the centenary, and a Lady Chapel was dedicated in 1972 with an aumbry the following year. Outside, the churchyard holds a Grade II memorial to four victims of a cotton-mill fire in 1874, including a three-month-old baby. The tower’s third stage contains two-light bell openings and clock faces on three sides. The south side lacks a clock because fields lay there when the church was built. A chimney stack rises from the vestry gable. Regular Sunday services, baptisms, marriages and funerals keep the church active in the Winsford community. The churchyard also contains many other memorials, reflecting the village’s history.