Church Of St Chad

A parish church built in 1912 with later additions, designed by C & CM Hadfield. The chancel was added in 1933, and the north-west porch and vestry date from around 1960. The building is constructed of coursed squared stone with ashlar dressings and slate roofs with coped gables, featuring a plinth and moulded eaves throughout.

Plan and Exterior

The building comprises a chancel, vestries, a nave with clerestory and aisles, a west porch, an organ chamber and porch, and a north-west porch. The chancel's east end has a shallow gabled shouldered projection with square buttresses and a moulded round-arched recess containing a traceried round window with a panel below. A transverse corridor with four unequally spaced single light windows links small flat-roofed vestries, the southern one having a single light window in the return angle. The chancel has on either side a tall flat-headed double lancet with tracery, and on the north side a square external stack.

The nave comprises three bays with clerestory windows: on either side are three pairs of flat-headed two-light windows. The west gable features cross and gabled angle buttresses topped with crocketed pinnacles and is decorated with two traceried flat-headed double lancets with traceried panels below and an enriched band above. In the gable peak sits a moulded square traceried panel. A shallow west porch has a steep pitched gable flanked by buttresses with cross gabled pinnacles and a moulded pointed arched doorway, flanked on either side by a segment-arched recess.

The triple-gabled south aisle contains three large pointed arched windows, each with a central mullion containing a niche with tracery above it, flanked by double pointed arch lights with intersecting tracery. The three-bay north aisle features a string course, sillband and moulded coped parapet stepped above each bay, with a gabled buttress at the north-east corner. To the east are two windows similar to those in the south aisle; to the west is a gabled porch with cross and two narrow single lancets to the north. A single light flat-headed window faces west, and a cove-moulded flat-headed double door faces east. Each aisle terminates at the west end with an angle buttress, billeted eaves, coped parapet, and a flat-headed traceried four-light window.

The flat-roofed organ chamber and choir vestry, occupying the south transept position, has dentilled eaves and three tall round-headed lights to the south. To the east, in the return angle, sits a flat-roofed square porch with a door to the south and a three-light mullioned window to the east. At the position of the unbuilt north transept is a pointed arched opening with hoodmould and mid-20th-century glazing. To the north-east, a mid-20th-century flat-roofed porch and vestry features a central north door with overlight, flanked by three windows, those to the west being larger.

Interior

The chancel has a double coved arch with octagonal responds and a faience-tiled screen wall with chamfered coping. The roof is segment-arched and boarded with moulded ribs, arch braces and deep soffits. The east end features a projecting square reredos panel and above it a segment-arched recess with a traceried round window. The north side contains a double-chamfered pointed arched opening with mid-20th-century glazed screen and a doorway to the east. The south side has a flat-headed chamfered sedilia under the window to the east and to the west a pointed arched recess containing the organ.

The nave has three-bay arcades with double-chamfered arches and round piers without capitals. The roof is segment-arched and boarded with wall shafts on corbels, tie beams and king posts, with paired clerestory windows. The aisles have three-bay transverse arch-braced roofs with arch braces, wall shafts and corbels. Their west ends feature segment-arched openings with four-light traceried windows.

The south aisle contains three windows, the eastern one with stained glass dated 1919 and the central one with stained glass dated 1916. At its east end is a segmental pointed double-chamfered opening with traceried panelled wooden screen and double door. The north aisle features to the west a chamfered segment-arched doorway and to the east two windows, the eastern one with stained glass dated 1945, and at its east end a blocked arch similar to that in the south aisle.

Fittings

The church contains a square ashlar font with an inscribed bowl and lobed base with four corner shafts. A cast metal lectern in the form of an angel stands on an octagonal pedestal with steps and brass handrail, dated 1917. There is a panelled traceried octagonal wooden pulpit on an ashlar base. Panelled openwork stalls and desks with shaped ends date from around 1933. Memorials include a repousse copper plaque from 1919.