Places: Rostherne

ROSTHERNE (ROSTHORNE)

The parish of Rostherne is situated in the north-east of the county of Cheshire. It comprised the townships of Marthall with Little Warford, Mere, Millington, Rostherne, Snelson, Over Tabley and Tatton plus parts of Agden and Bollington and the chapelries of High Legh, Knutsford and Over Peover.

The advowson of the parish passed to the family of Venables of Kinderton in the reign of Edward III. They remained patrons until they sold the advowson to the Egerton family of Tatton in the eighteenth century. The church was appropriated by the Priory of Launde in Leicestershire in 1507. The appropriation by the priory was controversial, however, as it seems that the prior also claimed the advowson. In a Star Chamber case the prior alleged that in 1529 William Venables had organised ‘misdemeaned persons to the nombre of 100’ who ‘came violently to the church, and pulled the … vycar owte of his stall’ and installed their own candidate (Stewart-Brown, Lancashire and Cheshire cases in the court of Star Chamber, p. 110).

Following the surrender of the priory in December 1539 the parish remained in the hands of the king until he transferred it to Christ Church in about 1546. 

The parish church, situated to the north of the village of Rostherne is built of sandstone overlooking Rostherne Mere to the north with the M56 in the distance. There has been a church on the site since at least the twelfth century. The tower dates from 1744 and replaced a sixteenth-century steeple which had collapsed three years earlier, damaging the body of the church. Fortunately, the boys from the parish school, who were taught in the base of the tower, had left for the day when this collapse happened. The body of the church was comprehensively remodelled in 1888 although some late Tudor parts survive.

Outside the church, many of the gravestones in the older area of the churchyard have been laid flat. The lych gate, dating from 1640, is one of the oldest in Cheshire and has an unusual self-closing mechanism using a weight.

Although not as big as many Cheshire parishes, Rostherne did cover quite a large area and the Puritan minister, Adam Martindale, while vicar at Rostherne which was contiguous with Great Budworth, complained in the mid-seventeenth century that ‘the minister of Great Budworth and I had such vast parishes to go through, that multitudes of the people would be dead, in all probability, ere we could goe once over them’. Martindale faced this problem by preaching his Rostherne Sunday sermon again at High Legh and Tabley during the following week whenever he could (Parkinson (ed.), Life of Adam Martindale, p.122).

The parish remains a largely rural area.

Sources:

George Ormerod, The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester (second edition, revised and enlarged by T. Helsby, London, 1882), vol. i, pp. 429-439

Rev. F. Parkinson (ed.), Life of Adam Martindale (Chetham Society, old series, 4, 1845)

Raymond Richards, Old Cheshire Churches (Revised and enlarged edition, Didsbury, 1973), pp. 286-288

R. Stewart-Brown (ed.) Lancashire and Cheshire cases in the court of Star Chamber (part I) (The Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 71, 1916-17)

‘Houses of Augustinian canons: The priory of Launde’, in A History of the County of Leicestershire: Volume 2, ed. W G Hoskins, R A McKinley (London, 1954), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/leics/vol2/pp10-13 [accessed 12 February 2025]

‘Ross – Rothwell’, in A Topographical Dictionary of England, ed. Samuel Lewis (London, 1848), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-dict/england/pp697-703 [accessed 12 February 2025]

Historic England
Church of St Mary, Rostherne Lane (1230301)
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1230301  National Heritage List for England