St Bartholomew's Wilmslow

Wilmslow Archaeology Group
Project: A Church for the Fees
Progress Report for August 2007

This report relates to the activities of the 'Church for the Fees' project during the past six months.

Since the date of the last report, the project group has met regularly at St Bartholomew's. There are generally 6 to 8 individuals present on any one day, with a core group of about a dozen people. We have, during the summer, concentrated on recording of the recumbent stones immediately outside the church.

Despite the generally poor weather during the past few months, we have been exceptionally fortunate, and have managed to complete all our scheduled recording days on site. Many of the days have also seen weddings taking place in the church. While we have endeavoured not appear in wedding photographs, we have been pleased to take the opportunities this has offered to explain the project to wedding guests as well as weekend shoppers.

Since the date of the last report, the initial recording of the recumbent stones has been completed, and we are currently recording the stones in the Memorial area, as well as to the west of the Lychgate, as well as recording the headstones to the North of the church. Group members have also begun the documentary and archive research which will form a considerable part of the project. So far, this has concentrated on gathering information relating to the inscribed stone fragments found in the churchyard, as well as a trial run of the database of the project and creating a record of material already published on the church.

The summer has also seen an increase in outreach by the project. This has included practical work with the Footsteps (the church's youth group), and visits by outside groups who have toured the church. Following on from an article in the Wilmslow newspaper, we have been able to make contact with several current and former residents of Wilmslow, who have offered and given help with the project and for whose help we are extremely grateful.

The group is looking forward to participating in St Bartholomew's Heritage Open Days event in September. Group members will offer guided tours to visitors, as well as hosting a display based around the inscribed stone fragments.

We are about to finalise the winter programme for the project. This will plan for both indoor and outdoor working, to take weather conditions into account. When working indoors, we shall continue the study of the Jesus Chapel, with particular reference to the Newton/Fitton memorial, as well as completing the recording of the memorials inside the church. We will then proceed to concentrate on the north side of the church. During the winter months , we shall also extend our study of documentary records. it is hoped that by December we shall be able to produce a number of short guide leaflets on some of the aspects of the church, covering frequently asked information (e.g. the Greg's involvement with St.Bart's). We are also currently working with Footsteps on producing in time for Christmas a small guide on the church, which will focus on their experience of the church.

Birgitta Hoffmann
Kathleen Morris
6 August 2007

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Report of the work of the Graveyard recording team and other
historical/archaeological work conducted at St.Bartholomew’s in 2006

Graveyard

Over the past year a team of half a dozen volunteers met on ten Saturday afternoons to record the gravestones in the grave yard.

In the context of the future building works at the church, the focus has been recording of the recumbent gravestones to the North and South of the church and to date about 90 of these have been recorded, as well as a further dozen of the upright and more modern stones on the north side of the church. The recumbent stones record nearly 300 individuals mainly from the 17/18 th century. They are mostly major landowners, yeoman of the area and alderman of Stockport as well as their relatives from as far away as Glasgow. Amongst these stones are a number of monuments to benefactors to the church (as recorded in the windows and inscriptions inside), as well as a number of stones, that originally formed part of the internal furniture of the church. The most impressive of these is the memorial Captain Worrell, standard bearer of the king at Malplaquet, which until the 19/20 th century restoration was in the Booth chapel of the church.

In addition, during the digging work in September the fragments of a further 5 gravestones were found, incl. one of the smaller type, that represents the less wealthy families of the 18 th century, which must originally have been numerous in the churchyard, but were removed during the reordering. Of particular interest is a reused stone, originally commemorating one of the Davenports, but reused in the 19 th century by a local family. The style of the inscription suggests a date in the mid 17 th century. The workman ship etc suggests, that it too may originally have formed part of the monuments found inside the church, although to date no mention of it has been found in the old records. Its find location, at the SE corner of the church suggests that is was dumped there during the landscaping in the early 20 th century.

We have also begun to cross-reference the material with the available Census and other material. This allowed us i.a. establish as far as possible, where possible descendants may be for two of the monuments that needed rearranging in the context of the Vision.

Report on the recording and standing building research conducted inside St. Bart’s

In addition to the recording of the monuments inside St.Bart’s, work has also progressed in reconstructing the architectural history of the church.

As part of this, two areas are currently of particular interest:

The crypt and the alterations by Henry Trafford in the Chancel area.

The analysis of the stonework in the crypt suggests that the current stone walls show the traces of at least four separate building phases, before the creation of the current chapel.

The latest is clearly the creation of an entry point from the outside in the form of the square central window/hatch, which is probably related to its use as a charnel house in the 18/19 th century.

Before that, and probably linked with the Trafford rebuilding, is the insertion of the West wall, including the reused sedilia (priest’s seat) and the sill stone, which does not belong to the sedilia. The priest’s seat is on the wrong side of the chapel (west instead of North or South and clearly Early English in style, suggesting that it came originally from a 13 th century structure.

The East wall as far as can be ascertained is not bonded with the rest of the walls and thus a later insertion. The only period that we currently know that caused a large enough upheaval for to the structure of the 13 th century church before the 19 th century was the Trafford rebuilding, suggesting that the wall may be linked to the creation of a family crypt of the Traffords and Booths.

Even earlier is the provision of the arch over the entrance into the chapel, which appears inserted into the earlier structure. This would suggest that around the 12/13 th century the chapel may have been remodelled.

The earliest phase is attested by the small round headed windows in the east wall, which are consistent with late Anglo-Saxon building, but not limited to it. Taken together with the findings from the 2006 building work, that the ground at the west end of the church was substantially raised in the 19 th or more likely 20 th century, this would suggest that the crypt may originally have been the original 9much smaller church, predating the construction of the current church in the 12/13 th, which turned this part into a crypt.

The second focus was the extent of the Trafford rebuilding of the chancel area. Analysis of the surviving stonework in the chancel both at the East wall and the North wall suggest that at least in the centre and in the Jesus chapel their was already a chancel and side chapel of the same size in existence before the Henry Trafford. The most important fragments of evidence for this are the ogee arches over the Newton tombs and the reduced wall in the Northeast corner of the chapel suggest the existence of a chapel there by the end of the 14 th century.

In addition the internal buttress (holding the staircase into the crypt in the Booth chapel suggests that the Booth chapel was an original construction of Henry Trafford.

The recording work in this area is still ongoing and more information (especially with regard to any surviving information on the situation in the 19 th century and the situation as recorded in the Harley MSS) will hopefully come to light. It is planned to write the findings of this study up for eventual publication.

In addition to these two stresses, the graveyard group was also able to record memorial inside the church, incl. with the help of David Gibson the stones along the North aisle wall, which were exposed during the recent cleaning.

As part of this recording, a small exercise has been started to identify all the gravestones of the former rectors of St.Bart’s, most of which are recorded to have been buried inside St.Bart’s usually in the Jesus’ chapel. As part of this research we have so far identified the memorials to 5 rectors, incl. the second oldest memorial in the church, which is elsewhere recorded as the tomb of the first priest of the Jesus’ chapel, dating back to pre-reformation times and now lying next to the tomb of Henry Trafford.

During the course of the year I have had the great luck of meeting several times with David Gibson and to benefit from the substantial amount of knowledge and material, he has already collected on the 19 th and 20 th century alterations and the earlier research in the church. I hope to continue the cooperation in future.

At the moment the work at the church is conducted by about 6-10 volunteers under Birgitta Hoffmann’s guidance. These volunteers come from all over Manchester and as far away as Biddulph (mainly attracted by the chance of conducting some real life archaeology/local history/genealogy), but also include a number of members of Wilmslow. In addition to the many frequent Question and Answer sessions and mini guided tours conducted in and around St.Bart’s during the recording sessions on the grave yard, Birgitta Hoffmann has been able to present some of the results of the study at four very different lectures in Wilmslow and Handforth: viz. general lectures on the history of the church for the Wilmslow Historical Society and the Handforth Guild, a guided tour for the Footsteps as well as lovely afternoon with the ladies from St.Bart’s.

Following from the success of the work to date, both with regard to the results, but also the fun that the group had during the year, the group looks forward to continuing the work to date. But while we so far have been able to cover the running costs of the project, by begging a few photocopies and photos here and there or providing the material elsewhere. We have decided, that to continue the work, it would be best to put the group on a more formal footing and establish it as a Community Archaeology/History project” (see attached leaflet). Apart from getting us a slightly better stand with the local libraries and archives, when accessing their holdings, it gives us the chance of tapping into the Community Archaeology Network established by the Council of British Archaeology for advice. A more formal group also allows us to apply for some financial help, especially with making our results more widely available (printing costs, travel etc.).

In addition the paper records of the graveyard recording and our research are currently entered into a computer database, so that in future they should be easily searchable for any queries coming from interested outsiders. The database is currently hosted on Birgitta Hoffmann’s computer.

Following on from the guided tour with the Footsteps Anne Binnie and Birgitta Hoffmann are currently negotiating a timetable to let Footsteps join in the project and bring their own interests to bear.

For the immediate future the meetings of the graveyard recording group are restarting again with the first meeting scheduled for February 3 rd. In view of the weather we will, however, be recording inside St.Bart’s rather than outside.

Birgitta Hoffmann, 30 January 2007

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