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To many people the most interesting part of Alstonefield is St Peter’s Church - a church that has its origins more than a thousand years ago. Most of the chancel was rebuilt in 1590 and was restored in 1870, but the two small windows each side of the altar, the doorway and the window to the right of it, are Early English and were probably put in during the 13th century, when the chancel was enlarged by the monks of Combermere Abbey, to whom the church had been given by Hugh de Malbanc, Baron of Wych Malbanc in Cheshire as far back as 1130.
Note too the double piscina on the right hand side of the altar, which is believed to date back to the same period and would have been used at one time by the priest for washing his hands before the Communion service. However certain items in this wonderful church are even older - namely the eight-sided font, together with a stone coffin (which is almost certainly Saxon))and fragments of Saxon and Anglian crosses, some carved with knotwork ornament, suggesting that there was almost certainly a Saxon church on this same site a thousand plus years ago. For information, the current church is the third on this same site.
Back in 1570 the lord of the manor of Alstonefield was one Vincent Mundy he whose coat of arms can be seen prominently in the church.
Another coat of arms to be noted is that of the Cotton family. This was made originally for Charles Cotton Senior, who at that time owned Beresford Hall, regretfully now demolished. His son, also named Charles, was a friend of Izaak Walton, he of ‘The Compleat Angler’ fame.
The tower is, almost unbelievably, the newest part of the church, being probably late Tudor. It seems to have been built of stone from an older building in a patchwork construction, which is visible from the churchyard. It could be said that the outside of the church, and the churchyard are just as interesting as the inside.
Built into the wall of the porch, for example are three carved pieces of stone, possibly Saxon crosses. Also look for the chequer-work design of the stonework on the north wall, suggesting that there wasn’t enough of the old stone when this part was rebuilt and enlarged around 1500.
To the left as you face the porch is the base of another of the Saxon crosses. They probably all date from the time of King Alfred’s daughter, Ethelfleda, ’The Lady of Mercia’...i.e. about 900-920 A.D.
For those interested in this form of history, there are similar crosses or fragments at Ilam, Warslow, Waterfall and Leek. St Peters, too, offers something that no other church in the country can offer. Note the small, round-topped gravestone which commemorates one Anne Green, who died on the third of April 1518. Visitors are unlikely to see another memorial as old as this one anywhere.
Another gravestone is to Margaret Barclay who died in 1731 at the grand old age of 107. Its quite amazing to think that she was born in the same year as Charles 11 and was only 19 years old when the current monarch was beheaded in 1649. She lived through the Civil War and was around for more than twenty years before Oliver Cromwell became the Lord Protector. She died in the same year that 10 Downing Street, the home of so many Prime Ministers, was built.
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