Church of St Werburgh

The Church of St Werburgh comprises a tower of 1601 and chancel of 1699, to which an aisled nave, chancel, transept and porch were added in 1892–94 by Sir Arthur Blomfield. Following closure in 1984, Blomfield's church was converted to a shopping arcade in 1989–90, later became a Chinese restaurant, and was disused again in 2009 before reopening as a church in 2017. The tower and earlier chancel are retained as a chapel by the Churches Conservation Trust.

Materials and Construction

The 1699 chancel is built of ashlar, the tower of coursed gritstone, and Blomfield's late 19th-century work of rock-faced gritstone, all under slate roofs.

Plan and Orientation

The church has an unusual plan consisting of a south tower with chancel, to which Blomfield added an aisled nave and chancel with transept and porch on the liturgical north sides, arranged on a north-south axis.

The Tower

The three-stage tower is in Gothic-survival style, with angle buttresses, embattled parapet and corner pinnacles. The west side has a doorway with continuous moulding and an ogee-headed two-light window. The middle stage contains clock faces in circular stone frames. The bell stage has pairs of two-light openings with Y-tracery and transoms.

The 1699 Chancel

On the north-east side of the tower stands the former chancel in classical style, with angle pilasters and hipped east end. It has keyed round-headed windows on the north and south sides, and an east wall with blind keyed oculus. The chancel north aisle, with its roof concealed behind a plain parapet, has a round-headed north window and a panelled east door in a moulded architrave, above which is a hood on consoles and a lunette.

Blomfield's Church

Blomfield's church is in free Perpendicular style and oriented north-south, with the chancel at the north end (the following description uses liturgical orientation). It has plain parapets to the aisles and an embattled parapet to the clerestory, with pinnacles rising from the buttresses.

The five-bay nave has three-light clerestory windows and three-light square-headed aisle windows with rich tracery. A shallow north porch has chamfered angles, an offset square-headed doorway with traceried overlight, and an adjacent two-light window.

The impressive west front features main and subsidiary pinnacles rising from angle buttresses, and a statue niche with pinnacle below the apex. The large seven-light window has rich tracery and sits above a shallow gabled west porch. This porch, with open arcaded balustrade and pinnacled shafts rising from diagonal buttresses, has a doorway with continuous moulding under a crocketed ogee head.

The three-bay chancel has two two-light and one three-light south windows. Its triple east window, beneath a super arch, comprises a three-light window flanked by two-light windows, all blind below transoms set at an unusually low level. Angle buttresses are carried above the eaves and have square, blind-panelled turrets.

The south chapel has three-light windows similar to the aisles. The north organ chamber has a pair of two-light transomed windows, between which an attached shaft rises from a buttress to a statue niche in the parapet.

Interior of the 1699 Chancel

The old chancel has a two-bay north arcade of 1850, with coffered arches on an unfluted column, said to have been modelled on the 1699 nave arcades. The chancel plaster ceiling sits on deep coving with rich cornice incorporating egg-and-dart moulding, and has a ceiling rose. The walls are plastered, with pilasters in the north and south sanctuary walls. Arches into the late 19th-century nave have been blocked. Decorative floor tiles were installed in 1873 by W.B. Simpson & Sons, with raised wood floors below the choir stalls. The tower base was converted to a vestry with fireplace and parquet floor.

Interior of Blomfield's Church

Blomfield's nave has arcades of quatrefoil-section piers and moulded arches. His chancel arch sits on corbelled shafts. The nave has a hammerbeam roof with intermediate trusses, boarded behind. The chancel has a wagon roof divided into panels by moulded ribs.

The chancel has a two-bay arcade into the south chapel and an arch to the organ chamber. The east wall is lavishly treated, with rere arches, richly carved spandrels, and a band of ogee-headed arches above the reredos. The mosaic and tile reredos includes a representation of the Eucharist flanked by Old Testament figures. The south wall contains a piscina, sedilia and aumbry under rich tracery.

Fittings and Furnishings

In the old chancel is a reredos of 1708 by Thomas Trimmer, displaying the Commandments, Creed and Lord's Prayer, crowned by a plaster Royal Arms. Choir stalls added in 1873, possibly designed by H.I. Stevens, were made by Mr Chapman of Norwich, and incorporate a screen between chancel and aisle with fretwork decoration that is probably earlier. Many wall tablets adorn the walls, notably one to Sarah Winyates (died 1828) by Sir Francis Chantrey, dated 1832, a neo-classical monument with female mourner executed at a cost of £600. Two 1870s chancel windows have been attributed to Mayer of Munich. Other chancel fittings were moved from the nave after closure.

The font is late 19th century, but the wrought-iron cover is by Robert Bakewell (1716), with new chain and bracket made in 1896. The wrought-iron pulpit and former chancel screen were designed by Blomfield in 1896, in homage to Bakewell, the renowned ironsmith.

In Blomfield's church, two surviving choir benches of 1873 have poppy heads and backs with quatrefoil frieze. The east window is by Kempe, as are three south aisle windows and one north aisle window.

Exterior Features

Attached to the north wall (liturgical east) of the 19th-century chancel is an early 18th-century gate screen by Benjamin or William Yates.

Historical Development

A church of medieval origin stood on this site, but the earliest surviving part is the tower, rebuilt in 1601 after the collapse of the medieval tower. It occupies an unusual position at the south-east corner of the former nave. The remainder of the church was rebuilt in 1699 after serious flood damage, but of that period only the chancel has survived. A north aisle was added to the chancel in 1850 by H.I. Stevens (1806–73), a Derby architect otherwise better known for his Gothic churches.

The remainder was rebuilt, with a new chancel, on a north-south axis in 1892–94 at a cost of £15,000 by Sir Arthur Blomfield (1829–99), one of the most successful 19th-century church architects who had been awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 1891. The ambitious scale of Blomfield's church proved unrealistic in the long term and the church closed in 1984, when some windows by Kempe and Herbert William Bryans were moved to Turnditch All Saints.

Dr Samuel Johnson (1709–84) was married here in 1735.