Buildings and Records - St Peter's
Saint Peter's
Prestbury has been a centre for Christian Worship since Saxon times, and the life and worship of the Church still remain a central part of village life.
Construction of Prestbury Church probably started about 1220 and it is almost certain that the Davenports of Henbury, the Pigotts of Butley and the family of Corona, the predecessors of the Leghs at Adlington, all contributed towards its erection. After the Norman conquest, the Manor of Prestbury was in the possession of the Earl of Chester, and in 1153 the Manor and Church was conferred to the monks of the Abbey of St Werburgh at Chester. After the Reformation, the Manor of Prestbury, together with the patronage of the church, was granted to Thomas Legh of Adlington.
Inside the church there is every style of Gothic architecture from Early English to perpendicular. In 1877, the church was extensively restored and extended by Sir Gilbert Scott.
The Belfry contains eight bells which were originally cast in 1820 and then recast in 1968. They are rung Sunday by Sunday and for weddings, etc, by an enthusiastic team of ringers.
In about 1840 stone fragments, parts of a cross of Saxon design, were discovered embedded in the masonry of the chancel. They probably date from the tenth or eleventh century.
Carefully put together, the Saxon Cross is preserved in the churchyard, evidence that there has been a church here for a thousand years.
The Norman Chapel stands close to the present Church, and was probably built to replace a timber-framed Saxon church. It has a beautiful Norman doorway, above which is a carved tympanum on which a figure thought to be King Richard Coeur de Lion suggests a date for the chapel of between 1190 and 1199. The chapel was in a ruined and roofless state until it was repaired and roofed by Sir William Meredith of Henbury in 1747. The windows of the chapel were dedicated in memory of Ann Rogers, wife of the then Vicar of the parish, in 1977.
