All Saints, Gresford
All Saints, Gresford
All Saints is a Grade I late-medieval parish church on Church Green, Gresford, Wrexham, in the Diocese of St Asaph. Cadw lists it as an exceptional example of a late-medieval church with fine medieval glass and furnishings. The parish notes that its bells are one of the Seven Wonders of Wales.
- Location
- Gresford, Wrexham
- Country
- Wales
- County
- Wrexham
- City / town
- Gresford
- Address
- Church Green, Gresford, Wrexham, LL12 8RG
- Postcode
- LL12 8RG
- Built
- 13th-14th century fabric; almost wholly rebuilt in the 15th century
- Architect
- G E Street (1865-67); W D Caroe (1913)
- Denomination
- Church in Wales
- Dedication
- All Saints
- Diocese
- St Asaph
- Parish
- Gresford
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Perpendicular
- Materials
- Cefn sandstone with slate roof
- Grid reference
- SJ 346 549
- Opening hours
- Open 8.30am to 5.30pm (or dusk) daily throughout the year.
- Access
- Accessible toilets nearby. Level access to the main areas
Overview
Cadw records a church in Domesday Book, with later records of 1254 and 1333 consistent with surviving thirteenth- and fourteenth-century work. The church was almost wholly rebuilt in the fifteenth century. Glass was given in 1500 by Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby. The building is of uniform fifteenth-century design in Cefn sandstone with a slate roof: a rectangular plan with west tower, north and south porches, and an unbroken aisled nave and chancel. Windows are generally Perpendicular, with seven tall four-light windows to each side and a seven-light east window. A curvilinear fourteenth-century window survives in the west end of the south aisle. The tower has a fourteenth-century base divided from later work by a band of quatrefoils, paired traceried bell-openings and a panelled parapet with crocketed pinnacles alternating with statues. Restorations include work of about 1820, by G. E. Street in 1865-67 (when part of the tower was largely rebuilt after a collapse), and by W. D. Caroe in 1913. The north porch was added in 1920-21.
The interior has continuous seven-bay arcades without structural division and an uninterrupted cambered-beam roof panelled with fluttering angels. Medieval furnishings include a chancel screen attributed to the Ludlow workshop, parclose and chapel screens, fourteen stalls and eleven misericords, and an octagonal font with traceried stem. Later fittings include a pulpit by Street (1865), a reredos by John Douglas (1879) and an organ by Hill and Son (1912). Medieval glass of about 1500 survives, including a north-chapel east window of 1498 with scenes from the lives of St Anne and the Virgin.