Gawsworth
A couple of miles south
of Macclesfield town on the A536 Congleton road ...
... the junction with Church
Lane, Gawsworth seen from Dark Lane, the road to Siddington and
Henbury.
Gawsworth church (the other
one) on the main road near the junction.
The village war memorial
at the junction with Woodhouse Lane in Gawsworth or rather in
what the Ordnance Survey insists is called Warren!
On the same triangular village
green is an old hand pump and this stump of the old cross, now
more worn than rugged, and across the road the village hall with
playing field behind courtesy of a thriving and efficient parish
council.
A quarter of a mile down
Church Lane the roads to Sutton and Marton intersect with the
latter named Maggoty Lane ...
for Maggoty
Johnson's Wood now owned by the National Trust. The gravestones
coated in green moss and in gloom were unsatisfactorily photographed
and thus unfortunately do not appear here.
Here we are at my ultimate
destination for today, Gawsworth
Hall where the lawns are already, at 4pm, being staked out
by parties picnicking before tonight's performance in the open-air
theatre.
The Harrington Arms, now
by-passed, at the southern entrance to the village ...
... where the road leads
directly to ...
... THE Gawsworth Church,
that of the parish and dedicated to St James the Great.
Built on earlier Norman
foundations in the 15th century it houses tombs of the Fytton
family. The grieving widow sits beside an empty space where the
effigy should have been of Sir Edward Fytton who died in 1606.
One of his daughters kneeling in effigy behind their mother is
reputed by some to have been the 'Dark Lady' of Shakespeare's
sonnets.
....
More Fytton tombs in the
church. One is of another Sir Edward who married at twelve years
Anne Warburton a month younger than himself. They lived together
34 years and had 15 children.
Coming from the lychgate
the post of the inner gates showing the skull and crossbones as
a Memento Mori.
The classic view of Gawsworth
church across the lake.
Continued
in Part II
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