Church Of St Matthew

Church of St Matthew

This parish church was built in 1841 by Thomas Johnson of Lichfield in the Early English style, with a chancel added in 1908. It is constructed in tooled ashlar with stone dressings and a moulded plinth. The roof is of slate with stone coped gables on moulded kneelers, topped by ridge crosses, and features a coved band one course below eaves level.

The building comprises a western tower, nave, and lower chancel, with north and south vestries. The three-stage tower has angle buttresses extending halfway up the second stage on its western corners. A polygonal staircase turret to the north-east corner has a four-centred arched door with lapped stone roof. The moulded pointed west door contains double studded wooden doors. Above this is a cavetto moulded lancet, and higher still is a diamond-shaped clockface. The second stage has small slit windows on both north and south sides. The bell stage is considerably narrower, with a chamfered band to its base and chamfered corners. Each side features a Y-tracery pointed louvred bell opening, topped by a pyramidal plain tile roof with wide belled eaves.

The north nave elevation displays five moulded lancets with almost full height buttresses between them and similar angle buttresses at either end. A low vestry is attached to the east end of the north aisle, featuring a cavetto moulded pointed northern door and a moulded lancet to the east. Above this, in the north chancel wall, is a trefoil-shaped window, and beyond to the east is a stepped triple lancet window. The east window has five lights with geometric tracery, two major mullions to the centre, and flanking buttresses on either side.

The south chancel elevation has two cavetto moulded lancets. The south vestry beyond features a similar window to the east, a cavetto moulded doorcase to the west, and a trefoil-shaped window to the east set in a four-centred arched recess. The south nave elevation mirrors the northern elevation. All openings have hoodmoulds; those to the south chancel lancets feature foliage stops.

The interior has a wide, almost semi-circular triple chamfered chancel arch with soffit on moulded corbels. A pointed chamfered western door with hoodmould and foliage stops leads into the tower, with similar doors to the south vestry. Similar hoods and stops appear on all nave lancets and the north-east window of the chancel.

The nave features an arched braced queen post roof on moulded corbels, while the chancel has strutted arched braced trusses. The chancel contains an early 20th-century panelled oak reredos with metal altar rails, oak choir stalls with poppy head bench ends dated 1913, and a wooden chancel screen with a frieze of small trefoils below a trefoil-headed arcade dated 1909.

The nave retains its original box pews with poppy head finials and blind pointed arches to the bench ends on either side, together with later bench pews also featuring poppy finials in the centre. An octagonal stone pulpit on the south side of the nave has a moulded base and cusped-headed panels to each side, accessed from the south vestry via a doorcase with castellated cornice. The octagonal font has carved sides and stem. A screened-off vestry of around 1950 occupies the north side of the nave at its west end.

Monuments are few. Two brass wall memorials include one in the chancel to Reverend Dibben who died in 1918 and one in the nave to Mary and Emily Singleton of around 1896. Two further monuments stand at the west end of the nave: a gothick aediculed wall monument to Elizabeth Pyecroft, who donated land for the church, and another recording the peal of bells given to commemorate First World War victims.

The east window, south chancel windows, and all but the westernmost window on the north side of the nave contain faintly coloured glass. The three central southern nave windows and the eastern window on the north side of the chancel display brightly coloured Chartres-style stained glass from 1841. The trefoil-shaped chancel window contains late 19th-century figurative glass, whilst the westernmost north nave window has memorial stained glass to William Wright of around 1954. The south vestry contains two figurative stained glass windows, one of 1858 and the other of around 1866.