Church Of St Walburge

The Church of St Walburge is a Roman Catholic church begun in 1850 and opened in 1854, with the tower completed around 1857 and the spire added in 1867. It was designed by J.A.Hansom, with the apse added in 1872 by Nichols of London. The church is constructed of coursed brown sandstone rubble with lighter-coloured sandstone dressings, a slate roof, and a white limestone steeple.

The church is composed of a nave with a short, three-sided apse and a very tall south steeple. The nave and apse are in the 13th century French Gothic style, while the steeple is of the 15th century East Midlands type. The west front features corner turrets with pinnacles and two large buttresses framing a wide central section and narrower outer bays. The central section has coupled trefoil-headed doorways with shafts, under a two-centred arch moulded in two orders. The outer bays have cusped two-centred arched doorways. Above the doorways is an arcade of nine two-centred arched two-light windows with shafts, quatrefoil heads, and linked hoodmoulds. A very large wheel window occupies the centre, with spherical triangles containing trefoil tracery in the outer bays, and an arcade of five stepped lancet lights above the wheel window. The 13-bay side walls have emphatic buttresses and tall, attenuated two-centred arched three-light windows with slender shafts and bar tracery quatrefoils in the heads. Similarly accented tall windows are found in the full-height, three-sided apse, terminating in pinnacles with blind arcading to the top stages.

The tower, located to the right of the seventh bay, is square and comprises three tall stages. It is elevated on an open base of large two-centred arches, with angle buttresses terminating in pinnacles and a shaft on each side. The tower has two tall, slender two-light belfry windows with shafts, cruciform tracery, and gablets with pinnacles. A very tall, octagonal spire (reaching 314 feet) surmounts the tower, its base clasped by pinnacles and small arched flying buttresses, with two-light lucarnes on the cardinal sides.

The interior resembles a medieval hall. It features a spectacular hammer-beam roof with painted statues on the hammer beams, arch bracing, and cusped tracery. A corbelled canted wall-pulpit is located on the north side, accompanied by a sounding board and accessed via a wall staircase with three arched windows and cusped tracery. A former organ loft exists within the tower, featuring a large arched opening and a projected gallery. There is also an elaborate wooden west gallery, which houses the organ that was moved from the tower in 1877. A panelled dado runs along the walls, and the windows contain geometrical-patterned stained glass by Maycock. Various stained glass memorial windows, by Hardman of Birmingham and Mayer of Munich, are located at the east end, including one dedicated to Henry Lord Holland.