Tour of the Exterior of the Church
Pegs, not nails The beams are held together with wooden pegs. These pegs gave the Church its original nickname 'Th'owd Peg'. In the restoration work carried out in 1995, traditional methods were followed, and new pegs put in to replace the old. In the south part of the churchyard, near the Memorial garden is a stone step or Mounting block, used to help people get on and off their horses as they arrived for worship. It probably stood somewhere near the Lych Gate.
©Photo Bob Alston 2010
The Graveyard This was grassed over in 1965 when the former Denton Council took it over under the Open Spaces Act, and, in accordance with that Act the gravestone were either removed, covered over or broken up. A few gravestones remain, though probably not in their original locations. The most notable of these is that of Colonel Robert Dukinfield, (an updated version of an older one), a prominent combatant in the English Civil War, and buried somewhere in the graveyard.
When people were brought to the Church for funerals only the coffins of those who could afford it were taken in Church. The coffins of poorer people rested under the Lych Gate until burial after a service. Nowadays it is very popular to have wedding photographs taken there. ©Photo Bob Alston 2010
Blue Plaques
©Photo Bob Alston 2010 |
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Two blue plaques stand on the East side of the building, one as a general reference to the Church, the other a memorial to the Rev John Angier, minister of the Church during the upheavals in the Puritan Era of the seventeenth Century.