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- 1. St Mary, Enville, Staffordshire, England
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Parish church Enville is in the extreme SW of the county, less than 4 miles W of Dudley, but only 9 miles SE of Bridgnorth (Salop) and 6 miles N of Kidderminster (Worcs). The church is on a hill at the northern end of the village, and to the S and W are the extensive grounds of Enville Hall. St Mary's is a red sandstone church comprising a chancel with a N organ room; a nave with N and S aisles and a N porch; and a tower, incorporating a S porch, at the W end of the S aisle. The four-bay nave arcades are carried on cylindrical piers of coursed ashlar; the S arcade 12thc. and the N 13thc. but heavily restored. The tower does not respect the S arcade; i.e. its N wall blocks the W bay completely. The church was restored and enlarged by George Gilbert Scott in 1871-74. His work included the rebuilding of the chancel (including the organ room), the insertion of new aisle windows on both sides, the erection of new porches and the rebuilding of the tower. This has an elaborate crown based, according to Pevsner, on Gloucester Cathedral or Dundry. The tower was restored in 1990-92, following falls of masonry onto the aisle roof. Romanesque sculpture is found in the S nave arcade and on carved panels and corbels set into the spandrels above pier 1, on the nave and aisle sides.
- 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 Leonard, Ipstones, Staffordshire, England
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Parish church St Leonard's has an aisleless nave, chancel and W tower. The nave is broad and has a S doorway under a porch and a battlemented parapet. The chancel is the same height and width as the nave, and shares the same roof and parapet. It has screened-off vestries to N and south, the S vestry now housing the organ. The tower has two storeys and angle buttresses. There are pinnacles rising from the bottom of the upper storey and a battlemented parapet. The church is of red sandstone ashlar and was begunc.1787, although the style is largely ofc.1300-50, to judge from the window tracery. It was commissioned by John Sneyd of Belmont Hall, who had quarrelled with the incumbent of the old church of St Leonard. The argument was resolved, and the old church became Chapel House. The present church was restored by Giles Gilbert Scott jr in 1877. The chancel was rebuilt in 1902-03 by Gerald Horsley, who was also responsible for the screen. There are three 19thc. drawings in the William Salt Library, two by J. C. Buckler dated 1841, before Scott's restoration. All show exterior general views, in which the church looks much as it does today except that it has no S porch. During the 18thc. campaign a 12thc. figural tympanum was discovered by the builders, in use as infill for the walls of the old church. This was salvaged, and is now installed in the S interior nave wall, between the middle pair of windows. It is the only Romanesque feature.
- 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 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.
- 6. St Andrew, Weston under Lizard, Staffordshire, England
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Parish church The church is set at the northern edge of the extensive grounds of Weston Park, a great house built by Sir Thomas and Lady Wilbraham in 1671, to the Lady's designs. There was an older church on the site, which Lady Wilbraham largely pulled down, retaining the W tower and the E wall of the chancel, with its 14thc. three-light reticulated E window. The present nave and chancel are a single box-like space, with a family chapel and a vestry facing one another across the chancel (added by Ewan Christian in 1876-77). The tower has tiny W diagonal buttresses and is largely 14thc. work. The tower arch is tall, pointed and continuous. Set in the interior S wall of the tower are two 12thc. carved stones from the old church. They were discovered and set here during G. E. Street's restoration of 1869-70.
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