lower than they are today There was no clerestory, a somewhat ill-advised and cheeseparing omission. The church must have been very dark. We might tentatively venture that it also supports a pre-Plague building date since clerestories were all the rage in the suggested late fourteenth century. Whatever, it is unsurprising that in the fourteen eighties a major rebuilding took place where a tall clerestory was added, the aisles mush raised to their present height and the rooflines were made much shallower, necessitating the usual combination of waterproof leaded roofs, battlemented parapets to hide the ugly lead and gargoyles to drain water from behind the parapets. Nearly all of the windows were replaced and enlarged. Together with the clerestory this produced the much lighter church that we see todayThe chancel too was remodelled. It is incontrovertibly a fine building and to all intents and purposes a completely mediaeval one.

The interior has many delights. Most prominent are the Cholmondeley Chapel at the east end of the north aisle and the Brereton Chapel across the nave on the south side. Both, of course were Chantry chapels until the Reformation put an abrupt stop to the practice of chanting masses for the swifter release of the dead patrons from the horrors of purgatory. Both, however, remain enclosed by parclose screens and both sport impressive monuments. The Church Guides suggest that there weer as many as six altars in the church. of which four were chantries.  Some of these may well have been maintained by religious or trade gilds. There is contemporary documentary evidence for the existence of a St Nicholas Chapel, probably on the north side. The Guide also avers that both of the surviving chantries were shortened to the west in 1717 when the rood screen was removed.

The chancel boasts a range of three stalls with misericords. One has the ubiquitous mermaid with mirror and comb. These are fifteenth century and it was recorded in the nineteenth century that there were twelve stalls here. Did the lost ones also have misericords? Malpas is one of only two parish churches in Cheshire with any misericords, the other being the twenty at Nantwich.

Another curiosity here is the great collection of Flemish glass roundels. Such roundels are surprisingly common in England - but they are never English!  England did not produce “pot glass” - where pigments were fired “in the pot” during the manufacture of the glass. When Louis XIII of France went to war with Duke Charles IV of Lorraine in 1633 the Lorraine glass houses were destroyed, leading to almost two centuries in which hardly any pot glass was used in England. The roundels we see here are not of pot glass, but of glass colored with enamel paint that was made from melting ground-down coloured glass. It was painted directly onto clear (“white”) glass and then fired in a kiln. This removed the need for different pieces of coloured glass held together by lead in the traditional way. Presumably wealthy merchants were happy to buy these roundels for their local churches when they traded with the Low Countries to make up for the non-availability  of traditional coloured glass. Whether they donated them or sold them, I do not know! It was a curious practice. The style is constant: very realistic paintings of complex and sometimes impenetrable biblical scenes with a penchant for lurid depictions of violent deaths and executions! I suppose they fitted in with the contemporary focus on scripture. Whether the scenes were ever decipherable by short-sighted English peasants and tradesman is somewhat doubtful and in those churches where (unlike at Malpas) words were inscribed, it was in Dutch! Which, I submit, would have been Double Dutch to most observers! Yes, I hear your groans.

Looking east. The symmetrical arcades are of impressive height, and each with six bays. The Cholmondeley Chapel to the left and the Brereton Chapel to the right stand aloof behind their parclose screens. The east window is Perpendicular in style and must date from the remodelling of the chancel in the fifteenth century.

Left: Looking to the west. The tower arch is as impressive as the arcades and totally in proportion with them. Pevsner describes the fifteenth century nave roof as “glorious” and few would disagree. Pevsner asserts that the impressive west window with reticulated tracery in the Decorated style in fact dates only from 1864. Right Above: The Cholmondeley Chapel and its parclose screen in the north aisle. Right Lower: Looking west along the north aisle

Tomb Chest of Sir Hugh Cholmondeley (d.1596) and Wife

The alabaster tomb chest - it dates from 1605, some years after Sir Hugh’s death -  is post-Reformation with none of the exuberance of the Brereton monument on the south side. Nor is the sculpture of the same quality. Compare, in particular, the crude weepers shown here (top right and above) with the splendid display of the Breretons. The couple (above) are Hugh the Younger and his wife.  Sir Hugh made his name fighting the Scots in the time of Elizabeth I. His wife, Anne Dorman, has a most unusual headdress here.

Tomb Chest of Sir Randal Brereton (d. 1530) and Wife

Randal Brereton too was a military man and and was knighted by Henry VIII after taking part in the sieges of Tournay and Terouanne in France. If the name Brereton sounds vaguely familiar to you it will be because Randal’s son, Sir William, was one of those unfortunates executed as a supposed lover of Ann Boleyn. He was very close to the King, and one of the four Grooms of the King’s Chamber, a coveted post.. Not least by dint of Henry’s generosity, William became fabulously wealthy and it could not have helped him at his trial that the foreman of the jury owed him a considerable amount of money, a debt that would have been canceled with his conviction! We may be sure that ruthless Thomas Cromwell was never going to let him be acquitted anyway. He and his co-accused - Smeaton, Boleyn, Norris and Weston - were fortunate that hanging drawing and quartering was commuted by Henry the Tyrant to beheading. Everything about this alabaster monument outshines that of Cholmondeley. Look in particularly at the finely-drawn detail of Lady Eleanor’s costume and adornments. The figures around the base announce the connections of the Brereton family and tell us much about the costumes of the day. Also shown are bedesman - priests employed to pray for the souls of the dead  - a clergyman and a schoolmaster. Note the muzzled bear beneath Sir Randal’s head (bottom left) and the angel figures beside both of their heads. Randal sports an “Esses” chain of office, reserved for officers of state.

Left: More weepers on the Brereton Monument. Right: Looking across the nave into the Brereton Chapel. The Church Guide reports the fascinating fact that seventeen panels as well as four on the Cholmondeley Chapel are made from iron. It speculates they were made when the parclose screens themselves were moved in 1717.

Left: The Cholmondeley Chapel looking east. Unlike most of the windows in the church, this one was left unchanged in the remodelling and is Decorated rather than Perpendicular in style. Centre: The chancel with its large but somewhat unambitious Perpendicular east window with panel tracery. Right: The east window.

Left and Right: This wonderful iron-bound chest dates from the thirteenth century. The usually undemonstrative Pevsner declared it “gorgeous”.

Left: I found this gorgeous little creature lurking in the ceiling between gilded leaves. The painting makes it into an extraordinary figure - more like a stuffed soft toy than anything else. Look at his little arms and claws. Coming to a shop near you this Christmas. Right: The misericord range.

Left: This little bank of six box pews are dated and were installed in 1680. They were originally in the Brereton Chapel but now re-sited in the south aisle. Right: The triple sedilia and the piscinna of the chancel have been charmingly decorated with inst tapestries. In the centre is the sainted seventh century King Oswald (of Northumbria) to whom the church is dedicated.

Flemish glass. There are many such panels in the church, of several individual styles and subjects. The subject of the window second left seems to be the destruction of church imagery. There was nothing gentle about Flemish and Dutch Protestantism.

Three Flemish roundels. This is the format of most Flemish glass we see in English churches.  In the two picture on the left we see savage imagery that was quite typical of Flemish glass. Note in the central panel the fashionable ladies seemingly oblivious to the beheading taking place in the foreground.

Left: The south porch with a room above - a “parvise room. Centre: The west tower. The window is a fine site in its reticulated Decorated style but it dates from 1864, rather than 1364! Right: A curious plaque on the outside of the church.

Left: The south side. The church is richly endowed with pinnacles, grotesques and gargoyles. Unfortunately, the pink sandstone has not weathered well over the centuries  - and this is an exposed spot - so a lot of the external features have suffered. Right: The north side. It is fairly unusual to see a mediaeval church that is almost identical on its north and south sides. In this case, of course, it is due to the relatively late remodelling of the church. Still, it has done well to avoid the well intentioned depredations of the Victorians.

Three grotesques that have survived reasonably well. One seems to be a monkey who is - ahem - gratifying himself. Well, it got lonely up there over the last six hundred years.

The misericord central features for the miserimaniacs amongst you (and of which I am one). These are not masterpieces of the art by any means and they have also been damaged over the centuries.

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