Description

BIRKENHEAD

SJ38NW BIDSTON ROAD, Oxton 789-1/4/217 (East side) 28/03/74 Church of St Saviour

GV II*

Parish church. 1889-92. By C.W. Harvey and Pennington and Bridgen. Rock-faced red sandstone with Welsh slate roof. Decorated style. Cruciform plan with nave, crossing tower, transepts and chancel. High 5-light Decorated west window with sill band and hood mould. South door in gabled porch. Lean to aisle with 8 lancet windows, with continuous hood mould. Four 3-light Decorated windows in clerestorey, divided by pilaster buttresses. Two 2-light Decorated windows with rose window over in transept. Small shouldered doorway to vestry to east. Tower rises for 2 stages above the body of the church: angle buttresses terminate as octagons in the upper stage and are capped by pinnacles. Larger octagon in south east corner is stair turret. Paired bell-chamber lights in upper stage, with plate tracery and louvres, divided by pilaster terminating in slender pinnacle. Embattled parapet. Single rose window in east wall of chancel, rebuilt following war damage. North wall similar to south, though interupted by added hall complex. Interior: exposed brick with stone dressings. Nave arcade of 4 bays with single chamfered arches with hood moulds. Clerestorey with moulded brick rere-arches and corbelled cornice. Braced principal trusses carried on stone shafts springing from corbels. Keeled and boarded roof. Passage aisles with longitudinal arches. Intricately carved screen to west by Edward Rae or Edgar Gladstone Heath. Octagonal polished marble font with figures to cardinal points. Light fittings to nave with octagonal open-work lanterns with spirelets and pendants. Chancel screen with integral pulpit and lecturn, said to be by Edward Rae. Intricately worked screen and gates with open Perpendicular style panelling with marquetry work in base and carved traceried canopy over with marquetry inlay and rich foliate frieze. Sounding boards over pulpit and lectern. Choir stalls also inlaid with marquetry on frontals and backs. Vine band over base panels, poppy heads and misericords. Main stalls to south have intricate canopies over. Inscription records that the stalls were designed and carved by Edgar Gladstone Heath, and they are dated 1915. Stone sedilia with piscina in simple trefoil headed arches. East wall with linen-fold panelling. Large tripartite reredos with wings, by G.F. Bodley dated 1907. Gilded wood work incoporating classical and gothic allusions and representing Christ in Majesty and the Nativity, with angels in the wings. Communion rails also richly carved woodwork with small densley textured traceried panels. Wood side altar in transept, with canopied niches containing figures of saints. Stained glass: West window a memorial to George Rae, by Morris and Company, 1902, Faith, Hope, Truth and Prayer, figures on a foliate ground. Figures of saints in aisle and windows. North transept window also by Morris and Company, 1903, saints, prophets and angels. Kempe and Tower glass in south window of chancel. A good church with an exceptional collection of early C20 furnishings. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N and Hubbard E: Cheshire: Harmondsworth: 1971-).

Listing NGR: SJ3014887790

External Links

• St Saviour's Church, Oxton at Wikipedia
• St Saviour's Church, Oxton official website
• Wikidata Q15979506

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Old House Handbook 2 Books Bundle Collection (Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair,Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability)
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)