All Saints' Church, Daresbury

All Saints’ Church stands in the village of Daresbury, Cheshire, beside the Bridgewater Canal. Built of red sandstone with a slate roof, it mixes a 12th-century tower with a 19th-century nave by Lancaster architects Paley and Austin. The tower carries a fish-shaped weather vane and the date 1110, though this may once have read 1550. A five-bay nave, north and south aisles, and a separate Daniell Chapel give the church its shape. The churchyard holds a 16th-century font where Lewis Carroll was baptised. The church is famous for its links with Lewis Carroll, born in the vicarage in 1832 when his father was perpetual curate. Stained glass in the east window of the Daniell Chapel shows characters from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, designed by Geoffrey Webb in 1935. The pulpit and font carry carvings tied to Carroll’s stories, and a memorial board in the belfry spells out Daresbury in acrostic form. The Greenall family restored the tower in 1872, and the Jardine organ was rebuilt in 2002. Inside, plain octagonal columns support the arcades, and the Jacobean pulpit has angel-head carvings. The chancel holds brasses to the Greenall family and a memorial to George Heron, who baptised Carroll. The Lewis Carroll Centre, opened in 2012, displays panels on the family and hangs the canal mission bell from Preston Brook. War graves in the churchyard mark two soldiers and a Royal Navy schoolmaster from the First World War.