Church Heritage Record 642253

Four bay aisled nave with north porch towards the west end. Small spirelet on the ridge of the nave roof; chancel with transeptal vestry and organ chamber.

The church was built under the supervision of Mr. G.E. Street; it was consecrated on 1st May 1861; the former building in the parish to be used for worship was converted in 1857 as a temporary church, and in about 1859 the site of the present church was purchased. The church was to seat seven hundred, and amongst the subscriptions Lord Dudley gave £1,000.

The west wall is first seen; it is all in one plane, without buttresses save for low diagonal buttresses with steep shoulders at the angles of the aisles. The only stringcourses are most peculiar, and consist of a pair forming a sort of low sill to the aisle windows and then turning upwards to end abruptly in a foliate boss; a third in the middle of the wall forms a similar sill to the west window, ending in a further pair of carved bosses but without the vertical section. The west window consists of five trefoil headed lancets of equal height and extremely slender proportions with a circular window above. The aisle windows are composed of three graded lancets with trefoiled heads set in plate tracery with three quatrefoils punched through the stonework above. The steep little spirelet stands eastwards from the west gable, at a diagonal angle to the plane of the west wall. It seems to contain a single bell within wooden panels pierced with quatrefoils.

The north and south walls of the nave are identical and may therefore be taken together. The aisles have paired lights in each window, with trefoiled heads and trefoils in plate tracery. The clerestory has four roundels containing quatrefoils alternately set cross-wise and diagonally. The roofs of nave and aisles are striped with bands of grey slates amid the dark blue. The only difference between the aisles is that in the north aisle there is a porch towards the west ond; its side walls are windowless and the arched outer doorway has a simple hollow chamfer dying into the chamfered jambs. The celtic cross which surmounts the gable has lost one arm. To the west of the north and south doorways are single lancet lights.

The north transept of the chancel forms the vestry, and has a doorway in the north gable with a window of two lights and a cinquefoil in plate tracery above. There is also a pair of small lancets in the east wall, near a massive square chimney with octagonal top stage which rises in the corner with the chancel. The north-eastern corner of the vestry has a diagonal buttress while the north western corner has an angle buttress. The chancel is lit by single lancets in the north and south walls and by a large east window of five lights arranged 2-1-2, with simple tracery above the outer pairs and a sexfoil in the centre. The corners have low diagonal buttresses with steeply sloping shoulders. 

The arcades of the nave have big arches outlined by darker voussoirs and decorated with simple mouldings which drop with a vertical section onto the moulded abaci of the capitals. The capitals themselves are carved with stiff-leaf foliage, and the drums of the piers are simply cylindrical, standing on moulded bases. The interior wall surfaces are left with the stone exposed, and the clerestory roundels are set within round rere-arches over splayed reveals and steeply sloping sills. Above a cornice which seems to be of brick is the open timber roof, a thin structure with tie beams placed quite high above arch braces, themselves supporting queenposts. The structure has at some time been strengthened by iron tie-rods at each bay.

The chancel arch is tall and wide, on responds flush with the walls of the chancel beyond. Like the arcades it has simple mouldings and is outlined with voussoirs of a darker colour. Capitals to the responds decorated with a repeating foliated pattern return along the western face to the abutment with the arcades, a further awkwardness of handling. Within the chancel, which has a tiled floor two steps above the nave, are oak choirstalls and on the south side a simple organ case. On the north the arch is filled with a glass screen to the vestry. The arches to organ chamber and vestry are carried on semi-circular responds with foliated capitals.