St Mary the Virgin, Ingestre
St Mary the Virgin, Ingestre
St Mary the Virgin is a Grade I parish church next to Ingestre Hall in Staffordshire, rebuilt in the 1670s for Walter Chetwynd and widely attributed to Sir Christopher Wren, in the Diocese of Lichfield.
- Location
- Ingestre, Staffordshire
- Country
- England
- County
- Staffordshire
- City / town
- Ingestre
- Address
- next to Ingestre Hall, Ingestre, Staffordshire, ST18 0PZ
- Postcode
- ST18 0PZ
- Built
- Rebuilt 1673–76 beside Ingestre Hall, replacing an earlier church
- Consecrated
- August 1677
- Architect
- Attributed to Sir Christopher Wren
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Mary
- Diocese
- Lichfield
- Parish
- Ingestre St Mary the Virgin
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Classical (Wren)
- Materials
- Ashlar
- Grid reference
- SJ 976 246
- Opening hours
- Easter until the end of September: open Wednesday, Saturday and Bank Holidays 2pm to 5pm. October to Easter: open Saturday 2pm to 4pm. Visits can also be arranged at other times, please contact the church.
- Access
- Accessible toilets nearby. Level access to the main areas
Overview
Historic England’s list entry states that the church was rebuilt in 1676 “probably by Wren and certainly worthy of him.” Chetwynd, of Ingestre Hall, was a fellow of the Royal Society with Wren. A drawing labelled “Mr Chetwynd’s tower” survives among Wren’s papers; the attribution is circumstantial but long accepted, and Ingestre is often described as the only church outside London attributed to Wren. Foundations were laid in 1673; the ashlar exterior has a west tower with garlands, balustrade and urns.
The Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield consecrated the church in August 1677, baptizing a child, churching a woman, marrying a couple and burying another on the same day to show that this was a parish church, not a private chapel. The listing notes aisled nave arcades with Doric columns on tall square bases, a handsome screen, a richly carved pulpit with tester, a marble font, and late-seventeenth- and nineteenth-century mural tablets. Fittings are largely original and fared well in Victorian hands.