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- 1. St Mary and All Saints, Bradley, Staffordshire, England
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Parish church Bradley lies some 4 miles SW of Stafford in a gently undulating landscape of small dispersed farms, traditionally dairy. The church is of red sandstone and has a nave with a N aisle, chancel with a N chapel and a W tower. The chancel side windows indicate a late-13thc. date, although the E window with its flowing tracery is 14thc. The two-bay N chapel is of the late-13thc. In the nave, the three-bay arcade with its quatrefoil piers and sunk quadrant mouldings in the arch belongs to the early 14thc. There is no clerestory, but the S nave wall has been fitted with three tall 15thc. windows that light the interior admirably. To the same period belong the battlemented parapets of the nave and tower. The N nave aisle is linked to the N chapel by a simple, very plain arch, perhaps early-13thc., and an old roofline visible in the masonry above this demonstrates that the aisle has been widened and heightened, probablyc.1500 (see VIII Comments/Opinions), the date of the aisle windows. The nave has N and S doorways without porches; the N 19thc. and the S 16thc. The tower and its arch are 14thc. and later work. It had a W doorway that was blockedc.1907 using 12thc. and later carved stones on the interior. Other 12thc. carved stones are set in the S nave wall outside, and the church is also important for its chip-carved font. Antiquarian views in the William Salt Library are a view from the N by J. Curtes of 1798 (SV II 122c), one from the SE by Buckler of 1842 (SV II 29), and one of the tower from the W, also by Buckler, 1842 ((SV II 117). This last shows the W doorway before it was blocked. There is also an 1842 Buckler drawing of the font (SV II 121).
- 2. St Lawrence, Gnosall, Staffordshire, England
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Formerly Collegiate church, now parish church St Lawrence's is a cruciform church begunc.1100 with substantial later additions. Three-bay aisles were added to the nave in the 13thc.; the arcades have pointed, double chamfered arches carried on octagonal piers with moulded capitals. The W doorway and the triple lancet above it are also 13thc., as are the small lancets in the W walls of the aisles, so it is possible that the length of the church was changed in the 13thc. too. The S doorway is 13thc. too, now under a 19thc. porch (by Lynam, 1893). The 12thc. chancel has been drastically remodelled, but the original shallow buttresses remain on the N wall. The five-light E window is a spectacular example of mid-14thc. flowing tracery. A Lady Chapel was added on the S side of the chancel c.1500. It has tall three-light windows and a parapet, and a view of the E end serves to point up both the ineptness of the addition and the contrast between the sinuous Decorated tracery of the chancel and the austere late-Perpendicular work of the chapel. Also Perpendicular is the eastern chapel added to the N transept. The most recent addition is the new N vestry, designed by Ian Henderson of Horsley, Huber and Associates of Stafford and dedicated by the Bishop of Stafford in 1994. It is linked to the N nave aisle doorway by a passage containing a lavatory and an outer door, and thus combines the functions of porch, vestry and washroom.
- 3. St James, Longdon, Staffordshire, England
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Parish church The nave has no aisles but broad transepts at its E end. The N transept is of 1870 by A. Hartshorne; 13thc. in its details, but with a single opening to the nave consisting of shafted piers carrying a heavy joist. The S transept is of two pointed bays, and was built by John Stoneywall, later Abbot of Pershore, around 1500. The nave roof is modern and fitted with skylights. The nave E wall has the remains of wallpainting at the top. There are N and S nave doorways; the S under a porch and the N now giving access to a vestry. The chancel arch is 12thc. work, and the chancel is 13th-14thc., with simple lancets at the W end and Y-traceried window further E. The E window has reticulated tracery of the early 14thc. The W tower is 14thc., with diagonal buttresses at the W end and reticulated bell-openings. The parapet, with battlements and crocketed pinnacles at the angles, may be a later addition. Construction is of red sandstone ashlar throughout. The S transept has battlements. There are drawings of the church in the William Salt Library, dating from 1769 to 1841 (SV VII 35a, 35b, 36, 37a) and one of the S doorway of 1843 (SV VII 38). All show the church much as it is today. In the same collection are drawings of the font, of 1842 (A. E. Everitt - SV VII 42) and 1843 (J. C. Buckler - SV VII 41). Romanesque features are the chancel arch, the bowl of the font, and the two nave doorways. The N doorway was not accessible when the church was recorded.
- 4. St John the Baptist, Mayfield, Staffordshire, England
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Parish church St John's has an aisled nave with three-bay arcades and a S doorway under a porch. The chancel is square ended and the W tower has diagonal buttresses. The S arcade and S doorway date from the 12thc., both with round arches and the arcade with cylindrical piers. The N arcade also has round arches, but the piers have a quatrefoil plan and the capitals have crockets. The style is early 13thc., therefore, but Pevsner suggests that it belongs to the rebuilding of the aisle in 1854 by F. W. Fiddian and Ewen Christian. This is incorrect; Fiddian's plan suggests that the arcade was not replaced, and it also appears on J. Buckler's drawing of 1844 (William Salt Library SV VII 69). The S porch is dated 1866, and must replace the porch shown on Fiddian's plan. The chancel windows have Y-tracery or (at the E) reticulated tracery, pointing to a date in the first half of the 14thc. The external cresting of the chancel roof looks 18thc. According to an inscription on its W face, the tower was begun by T. Rolleston in 1515. It has Perpendicular bell-openings and W window and doorway, and a battlemented parapet with eight tall pinnacles. Construction is of reddish ashlar. A plain 12thc. window head is reused as facing stone above the S porch. Two 12thc. lancets are shown above the porch in a Buckler drawing of 1839 (William Salt Library SV VII 66), but they are no longer there, and this window head probably belonged to one of them. Romanesque features recorded here are the S arcade and the S doorway.
- 5. St Mary, Rolleston on Dove, Staffordshire, England
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Parish church Rolleston is now practically a suburb of Burton-on-Trent; what was a small village with an economy based on arable (cereals and beans) and dairy farming situated on the edge of Needwood Forest having largely abandoned its agricultural activities and expanded its housing stock in the 20thc., not without some resistance from the older villagers. It was an estate village until the Rolleston Estate, landlord to most of the local farms, was broken up and sold off in the 1920s. Little evidence of this remains, owing to the post-1945 expansion of the village.
- 6. St Chad, Stafford, Staffordshire, England
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Parish church St Chad's is on Greengate Street, one of Stafford's main shopping streets running S from the market square. Its W front is entirely the work of George Gilbert Scott (1873-74), but this conceals a church that is substantially 12thc. and considerably larger than expected. It is cruciform with a crossing tower and aisles to the nave. The aisles have four-bay arcades carried on heavy cylindrical piers with scallop capitals and chevron decoration on the two eastern arches of each arcade. Above the E respond capitals and pier 1 capitals on the nave faces of both arcade walls are attached half-shafts rising to clerestory sill level, with plain cuboidal blocks where capitals and bases would be expected. The W responds of the arcades are of a later date than the rest, suggesting that the nave might originally have extended further W, but the vicissitudes undergone by the façade (see below) make this by no means certain. Above the arcades are round-headed clerestory windows; originally 12thc. but entirely remade. The aisles are entirely Scott's work. The only nave doorway is at the W. The crossing tower was rebuilt in the 14thc. and restored by Robert Griffiths of Stafford in 1884, and all four crossing arch heads are 14thc., although the beautifully carved 12thc. W arch was retained, the new W crossing arch being constructed immediately to the E of it. In the detailed descriptions below, the 12thc. arch is called the chancel arch. The N arch was rebuilt in the 19thc, incorporating 12thc. carved capitals and imposts discovered in the restoration. The E arch has 12thc. embrasures, capitals and imposts supporting the 14thc. archivolts above. The S arch appears to be entirely 14thc. work, but it is largely concealed by the organ. The N transept is by Griffiths (1886) and now houses the Jevons Memorial Chapel, furnished in 1937. The S transept was not rebuilt until 1953-55 and houses the organ with a vestry behind it. The chancel is now of three bays, with 12thc. windows in the two western bays, original on the N side, and 12thc. interior wall arcading in these bays on the N and S sides. The exterior chancel stringcourse also stops at the end of bay two, indicating that the 12thc. chancel was a bay shorter than the present one. It may have ended in an apse.
- 7. St Mary, Swynnerton, Staffordshire, England
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Parish church Swynnerton is an attractive village on a low hill just 6 miles S of Newcastle-under-Lyme. It is centred on the church and the hall just to the S, the latter standing in Swynnerton Park. A view of the hall from the SW, published in 1821, shows the church in the background (William Salt Library SV X 59b). St Mary's has an aisled and clerestoried nave, a chancel with a S chapel (the Lady Chapel, now a vestry) and a W tower. The nave is 12thc. in origin, and of large, irregular ashlar blocks. It retains a round-headed W window and a W doorway to the tower. The tower itself is also 12thc. in its lower parts, including another W doorway (which Pevsner suggests is re-set here), but in the 14thc. diagonal buttresses were added and the upper stage rebuilt in more regular ashlar. Drawings of 1838 and 1841 (William Salt Library SV X 59a and 60) show the parapet with urns at the corners. The form of the five-bay nave arcades and a dogtooth stringcourse at the top of the nave walls indicate that the aisles were added in the 13thc. The clerestory has quatrefoil openings of the same period. The E bay of the each nave aisle has been enlarged to form a chapel; the S Perpendicular and battlemented, the N 13thc. in style but perhaps 19thc. (it does not appear in the 1838 drawing noted above). There is a 13thc. S doorway under a porch. The chancel arch is 13thc., with nailhead on moulded capitals and detached en-delit shafts, and the chancel is of the same date. The details of the S chancel chapel indicate that it was added in the early 14thc. Beneath it is the Fitzherbert family vault. Romanesque sculpture, elaborate for the county, appears on the two W doorways.
- 8. St Editha, Tamworth, Staffordshire, England
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Parish church (Collegiate church to 1548) Tamworth stands on the river Tame in the extreme SE of the county. The Warwickshire border is just 2 miles to the E, but until 1888 it ran through the centre of Tamworth. The historic centre is on the N bank with Tamworth Castle overlooking the river and St Editha's church just to the N, occupying the N side of St Editha's Square, which is now a market place.
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