Not far from Risley is another of the benefice churches, St Michael with All Angels, Stanton-by-Dale. This is in the village at SK464382. There is a notice inviting me to collect a church key – I should have done, and will come back and do so.
Stanton was one of the early possessions of Dale Abbey. The Abbey was a house of Premonstratensian Canons, founded about 1200 and completed about 1250. At the Dissolution in 1538 the Parliamentary Commissioners recorded “Stanton juxta Dale is a viccaridge really worth seven pounds per annum, the place is void, in a peculiar antiently an abbey, fit to be united to Stanton and Stanton made a Parish Church.” The architecture is mainly c1300, though the tympanum of the south doorway may be Norman.
The tower is probably 15th century. When I get in I will find three Kempe windows, and a church restored in 1872.
I had a lovely wander looking at tombstones. Two old ones, then lots made of slate. Here is a current blog by a stone carver, and I’ve found a book Gravestones, Tombs and Memorials: symbols, styles and epitaphs – England’s living history, by Trevor York (2010) which I will read. Any of my readers suggest anything else?
There is a lamp commemorating a plane crash in the last War, and the crew are listed on the village war memorial.
The almshouses are 1711 – perhaps I’ll sign up for one.
