Church Heritage Record 618366

West porch, nave, apsidal chancel, and tower (with vestry in lower storey).

The site has low archaeological potential as it has only been a church since the 1840s. There are no burials.

The village was near the Roman road from Deva (Chester) via Viroconium Cornoviorum (Wroxeter) to Isca (Caerleon), later known as Watling Street. Neighbouring villages received their names in the Anglo-Saxon period and there are local populations at Domesday. Holy Trinity, Wistanstow, the parish church, named for a Saxon martyr, is largely C12.

The area was politically significant in the Middle Ages as a frontier with Wales, dominated by Marcher Lords. Offa’s Dyke runs near the area, and there are several historic castles – at Clun, Ludlow and Stokesay.

The area consisted largely of open field land until the C17, before enclosure, and with much heavily wooded land used for pannage. Sheep husbandry was an important part of the local economy, and cattle and horses were also raised locally. The pastoral economy seems to have been increasingly important into the C17 and C18, as arable lands were located on steep hillsides and hard to cultivate.

The historic development of Cwm Head is obscure. There is a listed school house of the late C18 nearby (‘The Round House’) and a listed cottage of c. 1700 at Little Hamperley, but little other material indications of its development.

The church was built in 1842-44 by Henry John Whitling (fl. 1837-46) of Shrewsbury, formerly of London, at a cost of £750. Letters survive between Whitling and the architects John Carline (1761 – 1835) of Shrewsbury and Lewis Nockalls Cottingham (1787 - 1847) of London, who acted as consultants. An ICBS grant was rejected, but Whitling misinformed the incumbent that his plans had been approved and he had to flee the country in 1844 for ‘pecuniary reasons’. Nevertheless, the church was built, presumably by that date. Whittling designed several other churches (Haggerston, St. Mary (1838); St John The Evangelist, Walmley (1843)) and public buildings, including workhouses and guildhalls, both locally and in London.

An indication of an early, probably original, furnishing scheme can be found in an undated black and white photograph in the vestry. It shows different pews and pulpit, and a timber beam in the chancel arch. A painted inscription above the chancel arch that reads “This is none other than the House of God, this is the Gate of Heaven”. The pews are very plain but the pulpit and beam are richly carved.

Malcolm Saville wrote the first Lone Pine story at Cwm Head House in the early 1940s after his family was evacuated to the village. He and his family used to attend the church.

There are mature trees and bushes within the churchyard. No known preservation orders.

The church consists of W porch, nave, chancel, and tower, with a vestry in the lower storey, constructed in large blocks of stone laid in irregular courses and with pointing almost flush to the wall plane.

The unbuttressed west porch has a pitched roof, round-headed door and two rounded-headed windows.

The nave is unaisled, with three clasping buttresses to the north and south, two to the west. The western gable end is pierced by a circular window above the ridge of the porch roof. It has a slate roof. It has round headed windows to N and S, with glazing replaced in 2012.

The chancel terminates in an apse, with round-headed windows separated about pilasters and framed by a string course at sill level and a projecting band carried on corbels at the head of the wall. There is a lateral stone ridge marking the separation of nave and chancel, with a cross above.

The tower is of two stages, projecting from the south side of the chancel, and is charmingly asymmetrical. The tower has a round-headed window in the south wall of the lower stage. The upper stage has two round-headed bell openings in each face below a projecting cornice carried on small corbels. It is topped with a relatively squat broach spire.

The nave is unaisled, with a king post roof. The latter has two large tie-beams carried on curved braces and with diagonal struts. The major and minor rafters are all painted black to contrast with the white plaster between.

The windows all have round heads and triangular leading. The church is lit by electric lights hanging from the tie beams with modern shades and heated by heat lamps.

The floor is carpeted, with black and white tiles at the east end.

There is a plain, round-headed chancel arch in a Romanesque style. The chancel is apsidal with five windows in the same style as those in the nave. It is panelled at dado level, with an attractive tiled floor.