Church Of St Saviour

Church of St Saviour

Parish church built between 1889 and 1892, designed by C.W. Harvey and Pennington and Bridgen. The building is constructed of rock-faced red sandstone with a Welsh slate roof and is designed in the Decorated style.

The church follows a cruciform plan with a nave, crossing tower, transepts and chancel. The west front features a high 5-light Decorated window with sill band and hood mould. A gabled porch contains the south door. The lean-to aisle has 8 lancet windows with continuous hood mould. The clerestorey is lit by four 3-light Decorated windows, divided by pilaster buttresses. The transepts are lit by two 2-light Decorated windows with a rose window above. A small shouldered doorway to the east leads to the vestry.

The crossing tower rises for two stages above the body of the church. Angle buttresses terminate as octagons in the upper stage and are capped by pinnacles. A larger octagon in the south-east corner serves as a stair turret. The upper stage has paired bell-chamber lights with plate tracery and louvres, divided by a pilaster terminating in a slender pinnacle. The parapet is embattled. A single rose window in the east wall of the chancel was rebuilt following war damage. The north wall is similar to the south, though interrupted by an added hall complex.

The interior is constructed of exposed brick with stone dressings. The nave arcade consists of 4 bays with single chamfered arches with hood moulds. The clerestorey has moulded brick rere-arches and a corbelled cornice. Braced principal trusses are carried on stone shafts springing from corbels, with a keeled and boarded roof. Passage aisles have longitudinal arches.

The furnishings form an exceptional collection of early 20th-century work. An intricately carved screen to the west is by Edward Rae or Edgar Gladstone Heath. An octagonal polished marble font has figures at the cardinal points. Light fittings in the nave are octagonal open-work lanterns with spirelets and pendants.

The chancel screen has an integral pulpit and lectern, said to be by Edward Rae. It features intricately worked gates with open Perpendicular-style panelling, marquetry work in the base and a carved traceried canopy with marquetry inlay and rich foliate frieze. Sounding boards stand over the pulpit and lectern. The choir stalls are inlaid with marquetry on the frontals and backs, with a vine band over base panels, poppy heads and misericords. The main stalls to the south have intricate canopies. Stone sedilia with piscina have simple trefoil-headed arches. The east wall is lined with linen-fold panelling.

A large tripartite reredos with wings was designed by G.F. Bodley and is dated 1907. It is constructed of gilded woodwork incorporating classical and gothic allusions, representing Christ in Majesty and the Nativity, with angels in the wings. Richly carved communion rails feature small densely textured traceried panels. A wood side altar in the transept has canopied niches containing figures of saints.

The stained glass includes a west window memorial to George Rae by Morris and Company (1902) depicting Faith, Hope, Truth and Prayer as figures on a foliate ground. Figures of saints appear in aisle and other windows. A north transept window, also by Morris and Company (1902), shows saints, prophets and angels. The south window of the chancel contains glass by Kempe and Tower. The church stalls are dated 1915 and are recorded as designed and carved by Edgar Gladstone Heath.