Church or Folly? Hassall, near Sandbach, Cheshire

In 1836 William Lowndes began to build a church on raised ground on his Hassall Hall estate in Cheshire. He was a man of ‘strong religious feelings’ and funded the entire project from his own pocket. But by 1900 the church remained incomplete, and was described as a folly.

The title of folly was bestowed upon the church in the Harmsworth Magazine in 1900. Oswald Marvin wrote an article on the subject with the most peculiar subtitle of ‘Stories of Bubbles in Stone’. This is not explained in any way, but did give the designer a chance to have some fun and dot bubbles all around the images.

In September 1837 it was reported in the newspapers that Lowndes was erecting a chapel, and that his ‘praiseworthy munificence deserves to be widely known’. Lowndes had the church built out of fine handmade red bricks, and there were tall stone pinnacles and a slim bell tower which could be ‘seen from miles around’. Underneath were vaults, which were presumably to become the family’s burial place. It overlooked a piece of water in the ornamental grounds of Hassall Hall called Dog Kennel Pond.

The church, by then externally complete, was bedecked with flags to mark the coronation of Queen Victoria in June 1838. But, as Marvin wrote, ‘joy was turned to sorrow’ when Lowndes died suddenly the very next day. This has no basis in fact, and Marvin had lifted his text from an earlier, and equally unreliable, source.

Lowndes death was indeed ‘awfully sudden’ – but it was some months before the coronation. One morning in January 1838 he was ‘found dead in his dining-room, being left in good health when the family retired to rest’. Curiously, Lowndes made no mention of his church, or where he wished to be buried, in his will of April 1837 and he was interred at the parish church of St Mary’s in Sandbach.

Although marked on nineteenth century maps as ‘church’ the building was never completed or consecrated, and no-one knows for sure why it was abandoned with only the interior left to fit out. It is thought that Lowndes’s heirs (he left no issue) had no desire to complete the building – but neither did they wish to fund the cost of demolition, so the structure was simply abandoned.

But the windowless shell did become something of a local landmark and tourist attraction. By 1899 it was described as ‘a singular site’ although ‘depressing to see’: it was overgrown with ivy, and the many tourists had recorded their visits by incising their names in the brick and stone. There were plans for demolition in 1915, with the materials earmarked for new farm buildings, but nothing happened. Visitor numbers increased in September 1922 after the local paper announced that it was finally going to be demolished, and people returned for one last look.

Not a trace of this fine church can be seen today, but there is still something of ecclesiastical interest in the area. A couple of miles from the lost church is Hassall Green, where this tin tabernacle is pretty in pink. A tale is told of this church which is just as fanciful as those that attach themselves to follies. It is said that in 1897 a group of farmers from Hassall Green were in Alsager, where a temporary tin church was being taken down. According to the legend they promptly bought it and carted it back to their village.

Except… the ‘iron church’ in Hassall Green was opened in 1883. It was erected by Isaac Dixon, whose Windsor Ironworks in Liverpool specialised in ‘tin’ chapels, mission rooms and schools. An ‘exceedingly large congregation’ was present for the opening service and tea party. In his speech Reverend Williams commented that the area had long needed a church, and mentioned Lowndes’s church project which, sadly, had been ‘cut off by death’.

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