Description

SP 1296 SUTTON COLDFIELD HOLLYFIELD ROAD

1/10010 Church of St Chad

II

Anglican parish church. 1925-7 by C E Batenian, side chapel added 1977 by Erie Marriner. Horton stone cut as rubble but laid in rough thin courses, steel framing to the arcade and roof, timber to the windows and roof of concrete tiles. Chancel and nave under one roof, vestry and organ chamber, north-west Porch, side chapel. The chancel and nave form virtually a simple rectangle in plan, and the chancel is not distinguished from the nave except by a more elaborate treatment of its windows, and by the fact that the last few feet of the chancel are narrowed by the extent of the passage aisles, forming two re-entrant angles at the cast end, in which are ogee-headed entrances under bracketed canopies; all windows are flat-arched with wooden mullions and, in the chancel, transoms; three-light window to the east end under a relieving arch, with a corbelled statue of Christ in the gable above; on the north side of the chancel, one three-light window with one transom, then the two-storey vestry and organ chamber, like a transept, with two 2-light windows to the chamber, with cornice and parapet above; the nave has seven three-light windows high tip like a clerestory; low gabled porch to the north-west corner, the entrance proper being treated with timber fra=' g and having a pair of doors with elaborate iron strap hinges; on the south side, three 3-light windows to the chancel, each with two transoms, and seven three-light windows to the nave as on the north front; level with the chancel and the first bay of the nave is a flat-roofed side chapel in Hornton stone with ogee-headed door under a stone canopy and six flat-arched windows on the south side; the west end is treated with common red brick and left incomplete, a tower apparently having been intended; roof of concrete tiles.
Contigous with the church is a church hall of c.1970, which is not of special architectural interest. INTERIOR is a single space with arcades running almost its whole length, forming narrow passage aisles; the columns of the arcade are circular and constructed of steel clad in dressed, rock-faced stone, with primitive capitals; the three-bay chancel is marked off from the seven-bay nave by a step and a broader column in the arcade at the point of division, and a richer decoration of the chancel ceiling. At the cast end is a reredos of painted and gilded wood, late Gothic in style and rising the full height of the church; it embraces a picture in three panels over the altar, made of a quasi-mosaic and, above that, the three-light cast window which is filled with stained glass in a late Arts and Grafts manner, possibly by Henry Payne; above that, a richly panelled canopy; on either side of the reredos are depictions of St Chad and St Winifred in painted niches; the altar has riddel posts decorated with chevrons and surmounted by trumpeting angels, and its front is decorated with panels of late Gothic stencilling between depictions of saints in raised and gilded plaster; organ gallery on the north side of the chancel, now slightly altered and with the console removed, over the chancel, the pointed-arched ceiling is hung on steel trusses and decorated with low-relief plasterwork, in an ornate trellis pattern filled with trailing vines and ears of corn; over the passage isles it is panelled, and over the nave it has a simpler trellis pattern of trailing roses; octagonal font, presumably of a date with the church, having a spired canopy suspended from a decorative cantilevered beam.

Listing NGR: SP1338696190

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26319977

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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