Church Of St Stephen

CROOK AND WILLINGTON A 690 (North side) NZ 23 NW Willington 25/9 Church of St. Stephen

GV II

Parish church. Circa 1857 by J.A. Cory; additions 1868 (probably by C.H. Fowler) and 1873. Irregularly-coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings; Welsh slate roof with stone gable copings. West tower; 4-bay nave with north aisle and south porch; lower chancel with north vestry. 2-centred-arched double boarded door, with studs and elaborate wrought-iron hinges, under drip string in porch with sun-dial in gable peak. 3-stage tower with offsets has 3-light west window with traceried 2-centred head; small cusped lancet in second stage; Perpendicular tracery in 2-light belfry openings under flower-bracketed frieze and battlemented parapet. Pyramidal roof has weather-cock finial. Nave windows have 2 lights under depressed 2-centred heads, with Decorated tracery; chancel has elliptical-headed door with moulded alternate-block surround, under dripstring,to east; square-headed 2-light windows with Perpendicular tracery at left and above string. Diagonal buttresses to tower and porch, larger ones to chancel, with moulded plinths; nave bays buttressed.

Interior: plaster above boarded dado; ashlar arcade. Arch-braced hammer-beam nave roof with brattished frieze and stone-corbelled wall posts; painted panelled chancel-roof with Tudor-flower friezes and bosses. Patterned tiles on chancel floor. Double-chamfered arches on octagonal piers in nave, on attached columns to chancel, and springing from wall to tower. Chancel south door blocked; the opening, with crested wood surround, now used for priest's seat; vestry door has low elliptical head. Rood screen; choir-stalls traceried with poppy-heads; pews have Tudor flower decoration. Tower arch filled by glazed screen. East window in memory of Major-General Mills of Willington Hall, died 1851. Other C19 glass in chancel and in one south nave window. Brass war memorial (W.W.I.) on wall to left of chancel arch. Octagonal stone font.

Listing NGR: NZ2090835140

This List entry has been amended to add the source for War Memorials Register. This source was not used in the compilation of this List entry but is added here as a guide for further reading, 16 August 2017.