Church Of St Calixtus

Church of St Calixtus

This is a 12th-century church that was substantially altered in the 17th and 19th centuries. The chancel was rebuilt in 1633. Restoration and addition of a porch and turret were carried out by J.T. Wing between 1856 and 1858, with further restoration by A.W. Blomfield in 1859.

The church is built of ashlar sandstone blocks with buff limestone dressings to the 19th-century work, and earlier fabric of squared sandstone blocks laid in regular courses. The roofs are of 19th-century tile with crested ridge tiles to the porch.

The plan consists of a nave with a slightly lower chancel of equal width, a south porch, and a west bell turret.

The exterior, despite being of the 17th and 19th centuries, is executed in the Decorated style of the early 14th century. Windows and doorways have hood moulds with head or foliage stops. The roofs are behind coped gables on moulded kneelers. The chancel is an important example of Gothic survival, with a dated stone over the east window inscribed 'AN:DO 1633'. It has a continuous sill band and an impost band in the east wall. Large stepped buttresses mark the junction of nave and chancel, and diagonal east buttresses are present. The chancel south and north walls each have a single 2-light window with Y-tracery. On the south side is a round-headed priests' doorway with plain moulded imposts and weathered head stops, and a studded door probably also of 1633. The 3-light east window has intersecting tracery. The ashlar nave south wall has a 2-light window to the right of the porch and 3-light windows at the outer ends, all under segmental heads. The west wall has diagonal buttresses and a bell turret of 1858, supported from ground level by an arched buttress that frames a small west window incorporating a pointed trefoil tracery light. The bell turret is in two stages: the lower has two bells in cusped openings with linked hood moulds, and the narrower upper square stage has a single bell in a cusped opening, surmounted by a broach spirelet with weathervane. The north side of the nave differs from the south, with three buttressed bays. The outer bays have small round-headed Norman windows, and the central bay is blank, with the former doorway only visible inside. The south porch has diagonal buttresses and a pointed entrance with a continuous moulding carried over the buttresses to the side walls as a sill band, where small ogee-headed windows are placed. A blind quatrefoil is in the gable. Inside the porch are benches and a pointed boarded door with strap hinges.

The interior is unusually broad, and because the nave and chancel are of equal width, there is no chancel arch. The walls are plastered and painted, except the west wall, which is ashlar below the turret. A sill band runs along the nave north wall, which has a round-headed blocked Norman doorway. The chancel retains its 2-bay hammer-beam roof of 1633, incorporating primitive terms beneath the hammer beams. The roof rests on large stone corbels carved with mythical figures including a unicorn, Pegasus, eagle, and lion. The panelled dado in the east wall, continued above the choir stalls on the north and south sides, is probably also of 1633. The chancel has a 19th-century tiled floor with richer decorative and encaustic tiles in the sanctuary. The nave has a 3-bay hammer-beam roof on moulded corbels, with two tiers of wind braces and a panelled dado earlier than the present pews. At the west end is a boarded and half-glazed partition for an added vestry.

The plain tub-shaped lead-lined font on a broad pedestal with roll moulding and square base is late Norman. The pulpit, probably of 1633 like the chancel, is in Jacobean style, octagonal on a round stone base with two tiers of arches enriched with foliage. Plain stone steps have a wooden handrail and balusters. The wooden communion rails have turned balusters with cusped arches supporting the rail. 19th-century pews have simple square-headed panelled ends. The choir stalls are richer, with shaped ends and panelled fronts. A benefaction board on the west wall of the nave is dated 1815. A painted Victorian Royal arms hangs above the west window. Several wall tablets are present. On the south wall of the chancel is a memorial to Francis Billingsley, killed defending Astley Abbots in the Civil War, in the form of a rectangular tablet with inset slate inscription panel and painted armorial badges. In the north wall are two tablets to the Jones family of Stanley Hall, both of white marble on grey backgrounds, erected in 1829 and 1832. Also in the north wall is a plain tablet to Captain Hugh Tyrwhitt (died 1907). A simpler but more stylish tablet to Major Stephen Thompson (died 1955) has red lettering. The nave north wall has a marble 1914-18 war memorial tablet. Only two windows have stained glass. The east window contains a re-set medieval figure of around 1300. The 19th-century west window shows Christ as Salvator Mundi. On the north side of the nave is a rare surviving maiden's garland dated 1707, made up of wooden hoops with ribbons and two pairs of gloves.

The church is first mentioned in 1138 as a chapel of Morville and remained a simple nave and chancel throughout the Middle Ages. The chancel was rebuilt in 1633, retaining its dado and pulpit of that time. In 1856, J.T. Wing, brother of the incumbent, began restoration by rebuilding the south wall, then added the porch and west turret with spirelet in 1858. Further restoration was carried out by A.W. Blomfield in 1859.