St Laurence's Church, Frodsham

St Laurence’s Church stands on rising ground above the town of Frodsham in Cheshire, built of local red sandstone and raised on an elevated site called Overton. It overlooks the surrounding countryside from its position on Church Road, away from the town centre. The building is listed at Grade I for its national importance and remains an active Anglican parish church. It belongs to the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Chester and the deanery of Frodsham. A church with a priest here is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086. The church’s long history begins when Hugh Lupus granted its tithes to St Werburgh’s Abbey in 1093. Later Edward I transferred them to Vale Royal Abbey when it was founded in the 1270s. After the Dissolution the rights passed to Christ Church, Oxford. The present structure dates from about 1180, though the chancel was lengthened in the 14th and 15th centuries. Bodley and Garner carried out major restorations in the 1880s, removing galleries and plaster ceilings added around 1740. Inside, the nave shows fine Norman work despite later restorations. The sanctuary contains a 14th-century piscina and sedilia, while the chancel holds monuments to the Ashley family of Park Place. The organ case is by John Oldrid Scott, and the three-tier brass candelabrum was made in Birmingham in 1805. Outside, the churchyard holds a war memorial by Alec Miller, a sundial of 1790 and the grave of Prince Warabo, who died in 1882.