Church Heritage Record 627076

2-bay nave with transepts at the crossing, tower, chancel, south porch and north-east vestry.

Nave and Chancel 18m (65 feet) x 5m (16 feet)

A Saxo-Norman church, or possibly minster, on this site was radically restored by Warren Hastings in 1816. Then between 1859 and 1863 it was replaced with a church designed by J L Pearson and funded by Harman Grisewood. 

The manor belonged to the monks of Worcester from the 10th Century, then by the Hastings family from the late 12th Century. From the Norman church, the south doorway is the clearest survivor. Additionally, it is thought that the remains of a mill are present on a site adjactent to the old rectory. 

Coursed squared and dressed Broadway limestone, snecked lower courses, red Mansfield sandstone columns flanking exterior openings. Stone slate, limstone roof to spire and turret. 

The church is Early French Geometrical in style and vigorously High Gothic in character. It is embellished with a wealth of detail; the sculptor whose hand is detectable throughout the church was Thomas Nicholls, most well-known through his work with William Burges. The tower is the dominating feature.

The steep stone spire is pyramidical, with fish-scale decoration. The belfry stage has two-light openings with delicate tracery and quatrefoils in the heads, beneath tall gablets protruding from the sloping faces of the spire. As with all the highest points there is a cross finial.  On the north side is a stair turret with a tall conical roof and lombardic arcading under the eaves, the walls pierced by slits and with a door in the base flanked by sandstone columns with foliate limestone heads.

There is a raking plinth and string courses at the springing of the window arches and at eaves height, with zig-zag and billet carved decoration.  The other rooflines all meet slightly below another string course at the base of the belfry.

The transepts are symmetrical but not identical.  The north gable is pierced by a large rose window and an arcade of five cusped lancets beneath, the three intermediate lights blind.  The south gable also has a rose window but has two tall two-light windows underneath.  There is a string course at eaves height and another at sill level which runs unbroken around the whole building.

The nave has clasping buttresses at the west end with quatrefoil and foliate decoration flanking the bar tracery of the two-light window, with a central quatrefoil within a circle in the head. The side walls are each pierced by a two-light pierced tracery window, with a pointed doorway in the north wall at the west end and a south porch opposite this.

The chancel is the most ornate part of the building as one might expect, with the east face particularly elaborate.  It is framed by clasping buttresses, with a 3-light east window divided by limestone shafts and flanked by engaged red sandstone columns with finely carved foliate capitals. The continuous string-course is stepped up below the window, with a blind quatrefoil arcade below.

The porch has the same steep roof profile as elsewhere in the church, with a cross finial for extra vertical emphasis.  The heavy timber framing of the roof has nailhead decoration, vigorously carved.

The interior is packed full of detail. The pointed west tower arch has a brown marble column against the inside face of the arch with foliate limestone capitals, and green marble columns with foliate capitals in stepped reveals either side. There are similar arches to the transepts and chancel, and quatrefoils upper right and left of all four archways. 

The west window has central free-standing marble columns behind. All the other window surrounds and arcading match those on the exterior, but with flanking columns in pink or grey marble. 

Ornate wrought iron screens divide the crossing from the transepts, with highly ornate foliate, gilded and painted cast ironwork.

The floors are laid with red and black tiles. 

The north and south walls of the sanctuary have a foliate cornice above blind arcading, and chip-carved decoration within repeated semi-circles above the cusped inner arches of the east window. There are panels of geometrical multi-coloured mosaics in white, brown, green and black marble at the east end below these.

There is a sedile set into the south wall of the sanctuary, which has Geometric coloured tile flooring.  Stone barrel-vaulted roof to chancel, wood herringbone pattern barrel-vault to the north transept.  Scissor-braced roof to south transept. The nave has a pointed heavy-timber roof with braced collar, some principal rafters with billet decoration.

A plank door with decorative hinges leads from the north transept into the vestry through a trefoil-headed surround.  The dividing wall between the vestry and chancel incorporates a blocked 12th-century round-headed arch with imposts, and a blocked segmental-pointed arch formerly opening into the chancel to the right of this.  Small fireplace in the north wall.