St Chad’s Church Knutsford

KNUTSFORD - On Whit-Sunday the church of S. Cross, Knutsford was reopened after restoration and redecoration. The church did not offer many opportunities for favourable treatment. On an enormous Classic porch stands a tower and spire formed of brick, cement and wood. The sides are pierced by light, large windows, with Gothic heads, two west end and one chancel window. The ground plan is in the form of a cross. In the arms of the cross are galleries, which are placed flush with the walls of the nave and chancel and having another gallery at the west end, lighted by two small windows. The ceiling is elliptical in form, and rises eight feet from a wall-plate 22 feet high. The only decorative features hitherto contained in the interior consisted of a number of small cherry-wood buttons or circles placed in the centre of the ceiling and certain nondescript wooden constructions placed along the wall-plate running round the church. The chancel ceiling had been coloured a clear azure blue, and powdered with stars arranged in circles round larger central stars, having one very large star in the centre of the ceiling. The chancel ceiling down to the wall-plate is separated from the nave by a centre design on a cream-stone ground, of vine leaves and grapes, having a border on each side. Beneath the wall-plate, on a line with the above, the wall is formed into two pilasters, with brown lines for the border, inclosing blue quatrefoils; in the centre of the pilaster is a large quatrefoil inclosing a circle, in which is the sacred monogram AIHS@ in cream colour on a blue ground. The centre space of the pilaster is filled with conventional ornament. The chancel walls are coloured of a golden buff, the cornice of wall-plate being tinted. The side walls are finished with a cresting formed of the lily conventionally treated. On the chancel walls are placed two large quatrefoils with ornamental borders - one inclosing a lamb holding the flag, and emblazoned with a red cross; the other the pelican. A border of dots and lines finishes the wall against the ceiling. The chancel window and the two black tablets on this wall are inclosed with large wooden frames; these have been treated with conventional ornament and colour, in a free style. The chancel walls are finished with a dado of green, having a border running level with the bases of the framework of the windows and tablets, composed of a guilloche inclosing the sacred monogram, the lily, and the foliated cross. The dado is stencilled with a pattern composed of alternate large and small crosses and dots stencilled in blue brown and black. The ceiling of the nave is tinted of a light cream colour, and round each of the buttons or centres before described trefoil ornaments are stencilled with good effect.. A bold geometrical cresting, formed of the Latin cross and a trefoil cross, is stencilled in a cerise colour on the ceiling above the wall-plate. The walls are coloured of a neutral tint having a greenish stone hue; and round each window is stencilled an ornamental border, lines and patrests formed of the rose-leaf bud and flower. A dado in a murrey colour runs round the church, finished in a border in a dark dull green and black. The whole of the works have been carried out by Messrs Sutherland and Son, house and church decorators, of Manchester, under the superintendence of N G Pennington Esq. of the firm Pennington and Bridgen, architects, Manchester and Knutsford.[Building News 13 June 1873 Page 688]

Reference           Building News 13 June 1873 Page 688