Church Heritage Record 620159

Chancel, north and south chapels, north east sacristy, and aisled and clerestoried nave with north and south porches.

Chancel 9.25m (31 feet) x 7.75m (25 feet);  Nave 26.15m (85 feet) x 7.75m;  south chapel 4.05m x 9.25m;  north chapel 3.30m x 9.25m;  Porches 9m x 3.15m:  Sacristy 9.25m x 3.15m (toilet cubicle in north west corner 1.75m x 1.45m). 

The church was built in 1902-3 to replace a temporary corrugated iron mission church (later used as the parish hall, replaced by housing in the 1970’s), after the constituency had grown to some 5,000 as this part of Walsall developed to serve the expanding local industries.  The site, which had been farmland, was given by Thomas Marlow, whose generosity is enshrined in a plaque on the east facade.  The church was designed by the London-based architects JP and JEK Cutts in a late Perpendicular/ Tudor style.

Externally this church is a low and long red-brick basilica with lean-to low-pitched aisle roofs, designed in a late Perpendicular/Tudor style; the architectural details throughout are faithful to this concept.  The only vertical emphasis is provided by a small brick bellcote (one bell) and two short turrets with barrel pediments at the east gable.  The aisle roofs have Dutch gables at each end, and also at the chancel/ nave interface, from which rise two small chimneys, which serviced stoves built into the responds (the original heating system in the church).  The buttresses all have one steep weathering.  The small square aisle and clearstorey windows have respectively two- or three-lights with trefoiled heads holding plain and coloured glass, with a large segmental arch-headed seven-light window in the chancel and a two-light east window in the south chapel, and larger three-light windows in the west facade.

Stripped of most of its internal furnishings the church has a rather plain, hall-like appearance.  The main body of the church consists of the chancel of 3 bays, nave of 6 bays and continuous, relatively narrow north and south aisles.  The bays are divided by octagonal lozenge-shaped sandstone piers with bell-moulded bases and scroll-moulded capitals, late Perpendicular in style, with massive responds at the chancel/nave interface. Pointed arches (with two orders of plain chamfers and pyramid stops) spring from these across the aisles, defining the north and south chapels.  The aisle arcades have pointed arches turned in moulded brick with two orders of hollow chamfers, which spring from the capitals. There is a continuous scroll-moulded string course at clearstorey level. 

The nave was divided in 1980 into two equal halves by the repositioned chancel screen, above which a thin wooden gable has been inserted, painted in imitation of half-timbering.  The western half of the nave was used as a community hall, while the north aisle was screened off with a glazed wooden partition in which toilets were installed.  The south aisle was similarly screened off and used as the parish office.

A tripartite recess in the west wall of the nave originally served as the baptistry.  The central niche is the largest and deepest.  The recesses have arched heads, the central four-centred, the others depressed.  There are alternately one- and two-light windows in the recesses.  The arches have two orders of moulded chamfers and a scroll-moulded continuous hood mould. There is a low stone bench in the central recess.  These niches are visible externally as a projection with a lean-to roof, above which a stone statue of the Virgin and Child rises from a corbelled foot, flanked by large pointed three-light windows with trefoiled heads.

The sacristy has been divided into two with a wooden screen and is now used as storage space.  There have been two attempts at arson here since the church was closed.  The external entrance has a depressed head with a plain chamfer over a rectangular oak double door, which leads to a passage with a toilet cubicle on the left.

The north and south porches are symmetrical.  Internal doors have pointed arches under labels, with rectangular pine doors.  Externally they have pointed gables over ogee-headed four-centred doorways, with rectangular oak doors.  They have small rectangular windows in the east and west walls.