On the 28/01/2025 I visited the churchyard of Christ Church in Winsford, SJ663665, late in the afternoon. I found very few specimens present with the most productive areas of search being the churches sewer and the graveyard drainage systems with the manhole covers being lifted with the aid of a crowbar. The sewer manholes producing lots of Pholcus phalangioides females and immatures and the graveyard drainage manholes produced Nesticus cellulanus males, females and immatures. In the small carpark there was a large yellow council grit box from which I collected what I thought was a dark immature Theridion mystaceum/melanurum but later under the microscope turned out to be a female Cryptachaea blattea (a new county record for Cheshire).

As the gloom of evening set in I sat in the car for half an hour to allow the sky to go dark and then got my torch, pooter and alcohol filled collecting tube and went for a second look around the church walls. From small holes in the corners of the churches walls and buttresses and from beneath window ledges and stone overhangs a variety of species emerged. Lepthyphantes minutus and Lepthyphantes leprosus are usually recorded from most churchyards with the former species often the most numerous. But hiding amongst these species can be the occasional rarity, so all specimens one sees are collected and potted up for examination under the microscope at a later date. 

Amongst the three specimens of larger Lepthyphantes type species collected was a single female Megalepthyphantes sp. near collinus (another new county record for Cheshire). This species is most often found low down in its sheet web which is usually built across a corner of the outside wall of the main church building with a retreat into a small hole or crevice. Both of these new county record species have also been found at several more churchyards within Cheshire over the last month. These records, which were collected at night by torchlight, are;

Megalepthyphantes sp. near collinus 

21/02/25 Holy Trinity Church, Chester SJ383685 1 male, 1 female 

21/02/25 Holy Ascension Church, Chester SJ407691 2 females 

25/02/25 St Michael’s Church, Coppenhall, Crew SJ701566 2 males, 2 females 

Cryptachaea blattea 

11/02/25 St Andrews Church, Tarvin SJ492669 2 females 

21/02/25 Holy Trinity Church, Chester SJ383685 1 female 

25/02/25 St Mary’s Church, Wistaston SJ681536 3 females 

Both of these species have been found to be frequent in Cheshire and may very well be found anywhere in England and Wales, possibly even southern Scotland.