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- 1. 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.
- 2. 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.
- 3. 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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