St Marys Nantwich

St Mary's Church is an Anglican parish church in Nantwich, Cheshire, England. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. It has been called the "Cathedral of South Cheshire" and it is considered by some to be one of the finest medieval churches, not only in Cheshire, but in the whole of England. The architectural writer Raymond Richards described it as "one of the great architectural treasures of Cheshire", and Alec Clifton-Taylor included it in his list of "outstanding" English parish churches.
The building dates from the 14th century, although a number of changes have since been made, particularly a substantial 19th-century restoration by Sir George Gilbert Scott. The church and its octagonal tower are built in red sandstone. Features of the church's interior include the lierne-vaulted ceiling of the choir, the carved stone canopies of the sedilia in the chancel, and the intricately carved wooden canopies over the choirstalls together with the 20 misericords at the back of the stalls. The church is an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Macclesfield and the deanery of Nantwich.

The ceiling of the chancel consists of a stone lierne vault with almost 70 carved bosses dating from the 14th century. The eastern bosses depict the life of Mary and the western ones Christ's Passion and Resurrection. Over each choirstall is a carved wooden triple-arched canopy. The canopies are described as having "a complexity unsurpassed in English medieval woodcarving". Clifton-Taylor considered that they are the finest in the country, although he complained that they have been stained nearly black. At the lower ends of the canopies are Victorian carvings of angels, grotesques and foliage and below these are carvings on corbels of subjects such as mermaids, centaurs, wyverns and musical angels. At the back of the choir stalls are 20 misericords which date from the early–mid 15th century. Under of each of these is a different carving; the subjects include Saint George and the Dragon, the Virgin and a unicorn, and a pelican with her brood. At the ends of the choir stalls are carvings of poppyheads, wyverns and a green man.
The altar table is dated 1638. In the north wall of the sanctuary is an aumbry and on the opposite wall are a canopied piscina and a triple sedilia, also with canopies. These canopies are described as being "among the showpieces of the 14th century masons". The reredos was dedicated in 1919 and contains carvings of Christ on the Cross, Mary and John, and the four national saints, Saints George, Andrew, Patrick and David. The canopies above them echo those of the choir stalls.