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- 1. St Leonard, Blithfield, Staffordshire, England
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Parish church Blithfield takes its name from the river Blythe, a tributary of the Trent, and is some 8 miles E of the centre of Stafford and 4 miles N of Rugeley. There is no village any longer; all that remains are the hall, the church and the old rectory (damaged by fire in 1962 and rebuilt into apartments in the 1980s). The old village disappeared, probably in the 16thc. or 17thc., to allow the extension of parkland for the hall. The Blythe itself was dammed in 1953 to form Blithfield Reservoir, over two miles long and half a mile wide, and now a centre for wildlife and leisure activities as well as a source of water for S Staffordshire.
- 2. St Mary and All Saints, Checkley, Staffordshire, England
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Parish church St Mary's has a W tower, a very tall clerestoried nave with tall N and S aisles with four-bay arcades, and a square-ended chancel. The chancel is the only one of these elements that is straightforward. It has a five light E window and tall three-light side windows with intersecting Y-tracery, i.e. ofc.1300, and the continuous chancel arch with sunk quadrant mouldings is of the same date. The N arcade is 13thc., with moulded capitals, some decorated with nailhead, and alternating round and octagonal piers. The pier capitals of the S arcade are stylistically earlier, late 12thc., including flat leaves and volutes, but the respond capitals have very complex mouldings and are much later, as are the double-chamfered pointed arches. Furthermore the S arcade is considerably taller than the N, and must have been heightened. The clerestory windows are square-headed triple lights with ogees; a 14thc.-15thc. type convincingly attributed to the early 17thc. by Pevsner. The N aisle windows are 17thc., and the S doorway is ofc.1300. It is protected by a rib-vaulted porch. The lower storey of the W tower is 12thc. with a flat buttress and small round-headed lancets, all chamfered, plain and renewed. The upper storey is Perpendicular with mullioned and transomed bell-openings but a plain parapet with tiny crocketed pinnacles. The tower arch, confusingly, is 14thc. Decorated. In Pevsner's account, the church was practically rebuilt in the early 17thc. using the old elements and this seems the only way to account for the contradictions in the architecture. 19thc. views of the church, inside and out, and the font are available in the William Salt Library, Stafford (see IX Bibliography). The remodelled 12thc. S arcade is described below, as is the most important Romanesque feature in the church; the font.
- 3. St Editha, Church Eaton, Staffordshire, England
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Parish church Church Eaton is an attractive village in the W of the county, 6 miles SW of Stafford and 4 miles from the Shropshire border. The village lies between the Church Eaton Brook, to the E, and the Shropshire Union Canal, to the W, in an undulating landscape mostly devoted to dairy farming. The church stands at the E end of the High Street, and is of local sandstone. It consists of nave, chancel and W tower with spire. N aisle has been added to the nave, and extended eastwards alongside the chancel to form a chapel. Beyond this, at the E end of the N chancel wall, is an unusual 17thc. vestry. On the S of the chancel is a 19thc. organ room. The two-storey tower is 12thc., with clasping buttresses to the lower storey, which also has two small round-headed lancets in the W wall. The upper storey has plain round-headed lancets on its N, S and W walls, and on the E wall a larger round-headed window into the nave. All the external lancets are chamfered, suggesting a late-12thc. date, and this is confirmed by the pointed tower arch and its capitals, and by the bell-openings, with twin pointed openings under a barely-pointed enclosing arch. The broach-spire, recessed behind a plain parapet with gargoyles at the angles, is dated by Pevsner to the 15thc. It has lucarnes at two levels. The nave has a S doorway ofc.1300, and tall 15thc. windows. On the N, the four-bay arcade is mid-13thc., with pointed, chamfered arches and nailhead decoration on the moulded capitals. The square-headed aisle windows are 14thc, however. The N chapel is 15thc., with tall, three-light square-headed windows, and a two-bay arcade with arches taller than the nave arcade and crudely cut octagonal capitals. In the present liturgical arrangement the chancel has been shortened, so that its screen and step are alongside the central pier of the chapel arcade. The seven-light E chancel window is a beautifully skeletal work of the 15thc. The 19thc. additions include the S porch and the organ room and vestry on the S side of the chancel. Romanesque work recorded here comprises the tower bell-openings and tower arch, a cushion capital set in the S porch, and the broken and repaired remains of an elaborate early-12thc. font, closely related to the font at Bradley.
- 4. St Mary, Kingswinford, Staffordshire, England
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Parish church The village of Kingswinford has now been entirely absorbed into the Dudley conurbation. In 1851 it was described as 'a small but pleasant village, with many new houses, three miles WSW of Dudley' (White). The parish, however, was an extensive one, heavily populated even then, with 22,221 inhabitants dispersed among eight villages and twenty hamlets, largely employed by the coal, iron, glass, brick and pottery industries. Kingswinford village still exists, in name at least, as the area immediately around the church, with a green and a pond. Bradley Hall, a timber-framed house dated 1596, once stood in the village too, but when it was taken down its timbers reused by K. H. Smith for use in neo-Tudor houses at Stratford-upon-Avon in the early 20thc.
- 5. St Peter, Maer, Staffordshire, England
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Parish church The village of Maer is in the Staffordshire uplands, in the NW of the county. On Berth Hill, half a mile to the N, is an Iron Age hill fort, and the settlement has presumably moved down the hill towards the lake or mere that gives the village its name, and that is now in the grounds of the hall. The entire area was heavily wooded, but clearances must have begun before the Conquest, and by the time of the Domesday Survey there was land for two ploughs as well as woodland a league square. Church and hall are very close together; the road that now separates them originally ran behind the hall but was diverted in the 19thc. so that it did not divide the hall from the lake. Despite their proximity, the precipitous slope on which the church is built raises it high above the hall. The effect of this slope on the architecture of the church is best seen inside the building. Nave and chancel share a single (horizontal) roof, but the chancel floor is four steps above the nave. There is no chancel arch. The nave has a late-12thc. S doorway under a porch (of which more below), and a N aisle with a two-bay arcade, perhaps 15thc. in date. The chancel has a N organ chamber with a vestry to the E of it, both dating from 1877, and the W tower is 13thc. with a battlemented parapet and stumpy pinnacles added, perhapsc.1600. They may, indeed, belong to the rebuilding known to have taken place in 1610. Two drawings of 1838 and 1843 show the S porch with a room above it, entered by an external staircase (William Salt Library, SV VII 62a and 62b). By 1875, when an early photograph was taken, the tower was entirely overgrown with ivy. There was another restoration in 1877, when the ivy was cleared, the porch was reduced to a single storey, the entire church was re-roofed, the old organ loft and gallery were removed and the present organ chamber and vestry were added. The E window also dates from this restoration. The only Romanesque work described here is the S doorway.
- 6. All Saints, Milwich, Staffordshire, England
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Parish church In 1791 the S wall of the medieval church collapsed, bringing part of the roof down with it, and fabric surveys concluded that the entire church apart from the W tower would have to be rebuilt. The present nave and chancel thus date from 1791-94, and they are built of bricks from Milwich Heath. The nave is long and broad, and separated from the short, low square-ended chancel by a square-headed arch with rounded interior angles. It has a full-width gallery at the W end. In 1888 the interior walls were lined with pitch pine by two local carpenters, giving the church an unusual sauna-like appearance, and the interior was extensively remodelled in 1906, including the laying of a mosaic floor in the chancel. The 15thc. W tower is decorated with a row of shields and a stringcourse with gargoyles below the battlemented parapet. The William Salt Library, Stafford, has exterior views of the church by T. P. Wood of 1835-45 (SV VIII.145b) and by Buckler of 1841 (SV VII.77), both also showing the parsonage at the W end (now destroyed), but no view dating from before the collapse of the medieval nave is known. The only 12thc. feature is the arcaded font.
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