Church Of St Eata

Church of St Eata

This is a parish church of major importance, combining elements from the 12th century onwards. The nave dates to the 12th century, while the chancel was built in the late 13th century and incorporates reused Roman stone blocks from Wroxeter, some still bearing Lewis holes and carved scale work. The tower was constructed around 1300, with its top stage added in the late 15th or early 16th century. The south porch is dated 1685 and was restored in the late 19th century.

The building is constructed of dressed red and grey sandstone, including the large Roman blocks, with ashlar to the tower's top stage. The roofs are of machine plain tile.

The tower is the most architecturally complex element, comprising four stages. It has a splayed base with clasping buttresses of around 1300 that rise to the third stage, then diagonal buttresses to the top stage. The top stage is set back and features a carved quatrefoil frieze, corner gargoyles, a parapet with truncated panelled pinnacles, and a pyramidal cap with weathervane. The belfry openings have 4-centred arches with hollow chamfered reveals and paired trefoil-headed louvred lights with returned hoodmoulds and carved stops. The third stage has paired lancet openings with louvred lights and central quatrefoil-section shafts with moulded bases and capitals. The second stage contains a large west lancet with chamfered reveals. The west portal is a round-arched opening of 5 orders of shafts with moulded bases and capitals, beneath a clock positioned above the north belfry opening. A weathering line on the east wall marks a former roof-line.

The nave has two large grey sandstone ashlar buttresses on its south side dated 1817. On this side are two windows: one of late 19th-century date with 2 trefoiled ogee-headed lights and panelled tracery to the left, and one of 15th or early 16th-century date with 3 trefoiled ogee-headed lights to the right, both with chamfered reveals and returned hoodmoulds with carved stops. A 13th-century doorway to the left has a roll-moulded arch and hoodmould with carved stops, with a pair of 17th-century boarded doors dated "WH/15/CW/1685".

The south porch is gabled and timber-framed, resting on low sandstone ashlar walls. The entrance has shafts supporting brackets, and a carved tie beam inscribed "SAM JEWKES THO LISTER CH. WARD" with moulded barge boards. Above the south door is a tablet inscribed with a Latin text concerning Christ and salvation, with a translation beneath. A half-H tablet high on the wall to the left of the porch commemorates the Reverend Samuel Fowler.

The north side of the nave has a pair of large grey sandstone ashlar buttresses dated 1817. There is a small late 12th-century round-arched window with a straight-sided rear arch to the left, and a large 15th or early 16th-century window to the right with 3 trefoiled ogee-headed lights, panelled tracery, chamfered reveals and hoodmould with carved stops.

The chancel has a high chamfered plinth and probably a 19th-century verge parapet to the east. It comprises two bays with central buttresses, each with 2-light windows featuring Y-tracery and double chamfered reveals. On the south side is a double chamfered doorway with a boarded door and hoodmould with carved stops. The east end has a triple lancet window with double chamfered reveals and a pair of double chamfered T-shaped openings in the plinth beneath.

Interior features include a double-chamfered tower arch springing from single-chamfered imposts. The nave roof is possibly 15th century with a single frame, arch-braced collars and sets of 3 purlins. The chancel has a 17th-century tie-beam roof with collars and cambered tie beams resting on brackets. The south wall of the chancel contains a tomb recess with hoodmould, while an architectural fragment of carved foliage is positioned high in the north wall of the nave.

Fittings include a panelled octagonal stone font dated "IS/WP/CW/1675"; a 17th-century reading desk with fluted seat back-panels and 4 carved arched front-panels depicting scenes from The Prodigal Son (probably not English); two 17th-century carved wooden panels on the south wall of the nave, also probably imported; a 19th-century wooden pulpit with blank panels and carved foliated frieze; late 17th-century chair stalls incorporating some earlier work; late 19th-century altar rails; and 10 hatchments to the Burton and Berwick families. The vestry beneath the tower contains painted Burton and Lingen family coats-of-arms, a 17th-century pew, and probably an early 19th-century painted benefactors board.

The stained glass is particularly noteworthy. The east window contains late 15th-century glass brought from Bacton in Herefordshire in 1811, depicting 3 figures with the kneeling family of Miles ap Harry (Parry) below. A north window also contains 15th and 16th-century glass from Bacton. The late 19th-century west window depicts St Eata, placed in memory of John Lingen Burton of Longner Hall.

Monuments include an inscribed alabaster slab in the south-east corner, dated 1524, to Edward Burton and his family of Longner Hall, showing a figure beneath a canopied niche with 2 shields of arms. A brass plaque beneath records that this was removed from a freehold pew belonging to Longner estate in St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury, which collapsed on 9 July 1788. A brass plaque on the west end of the south choir stalls commemorates the sons and daughters of John Calcot and his wife of Berwick. Other late 18th and early 19th-century wall tablets are present.

A west gallery was dismantled in 1896, and the 1858 organ was enlarged and resited at that time.

Historical context: The medieval historian Ordericus was baptised in the church on Easter Day, 5 April 1075. St Eata, from whom the village takes its name, became Bishop of Hexham and died in 685. In his proposals for landscaping Attingham Park, the celebrated landscape designer Humphry Repton suggested adding a spire to the church to serve as an eyecatcher, but this was never built.