Church Heritage Record 620149

5-bay aisled nave with clerestory. Domed apsidal east end. 2-storey west porch and vestry. Vestry and chapel to north.

[Approximate] Nave 25m 85ft) x 10m (35ft), chancel 8m (25ft)

The area around the village of Caldmore used to be countryside south of Walsall. Maps show fields until 1845, with the main settlement at Caldmore village, which was inhabited by the 14th Century.  Caldmore had four metal workers in 1770. The area close to the church was developed in the 1830s/early 1840s, the landowner Lord Bradford granted building leases. By the 1860s leather working was important. The middle classes moved out into larger houses. Land continued to be released by Lord Bradford, though maps show still rural character towards the end of the 19th Century.

The church was established by Rev John Fenwick Laing [1830-1931], a high churchman, who held mission services in a small cottage near Caldmore Green in 1866 and the following year transferred services to a Church school to accommodate growing numbers. Further increase resulted in the decision to build a new church building. A local man, Thomas Marlow, donated land and money towards the total cost. A local architect from Wolverhampton, James Read Veall [1824/5-1898] designed the building. Construction began in 1870 and the first phase of works, including an apsidal chancel and nave, was completed by 1871.

ICBS files record the approval of three grants towards each phase of work on the church: for the design and first phase of building, for the addition of a north aisle 1878-9, and for a south aisle in 1880-1. A Lady Chapel was also added by 1885. An image attributed to Veall shows a proposed drawing of the building, with a south-west tower, never built. On the north side is a gabled vestry and a chapel, both added in the 1920s.

An enlarged organ was installed in 1888 and a west porch and vestry in 1896. The adjacent vicarage was built in 1913 by the vicar’s sister. On his death, Father Laing transferred the vicarage to the Diocesan Committee. Father Laing opened a mission hall in Palfrey, called All Saints, later St Mary and All Saints.  

A severe fire in 1964 began behind the organ and spread destroying the chancel and nave roofs, organ, screen as well as damaging murals on the walls (around chancel arch).  During the reconstruction a steel roof replaced the original timber roof. 32 of 38 stained windows were saved. 10 clerestory windows were reset with plain glass. Two super altars were removed. New choir stalls were installed. An original pipe organ was replaced by a Compton electric organ.  The church was reconsecrated in 1967. A new Church Hall opened in 1969. The Lady Chapel was decorated with murals in the 1990s.

The archaeological potential of the site is low. The building is within a conservation area and the mature trees are protected.

The west porch is of two storeys and two bays, and has a moulded pointed north doorway. The aisled nave is of five bays, separated by buttresses and with plate tracery of two cusped lancet lights with cinquefoil in the heads. The clerestory windows are paired lancets. The apse has three lancet windows with cinquefoil heads. Domed apsidal Lady Chapel on south side with single pointed lights and a plain pointed doorway in west bay.

The interior is broad and bright, with light stained glass in every window, modern replacements found in the chancel apse. The nave arcades have pointed sandstone moulded arches carried on round columns with foliated capitals, each paid for by a member of the congregation. The clerestory windows each have a central inner banded shaft with foliated capital. The nave and aisles have quarry tiles with decorative central aisle and borders and heating grilles.

There is a dais with nave altar.  The ribbed wagon roof of the chancel replaced the original one destroyed in 1964. The windows of the apse are flanked by narrow shafts. High altar decorated with paintings – theme repeated in modern stained glass windows above the High Altar. South wall has carved oak sedilia.  Modern choir stalls. Sanctuary with herringbone woodblock floor, ceiling of ribbed and painted timber. The Lady Chapel has carpet over a stone floor, a half dome stained boarded ceiling, and murals of 1982.