Pradoe Church

This is an estate chapel dating from 1860 to 1861, designed by Rhode Hawkins for Louisa Charlotte Kenyon. A chancel and a north aisle were added in 1864. The building is constructed of snecked sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings, and has machine tile roofs with coped verges and ornamental cresting. It comprises a nave, chancel, a north chancel aisle, and a north tower, and is executed in the Decorated style.

The tower is in two stages, featuring a double-chamfered string course and diagonal buttresses to the bottom stage at the north-east and north-west corners. A chamfered rectangular window is present on the north side of the ground floor, and a single-chamfered pointed doorway on the west. The belfry windows are each of two cusped lights with trefoils above, and have head-stops to the hoodmoulds. A cornice with dogtooth decoration sits above, supporting a pyramidal spire. The nave is buttressed in three bays to the south, with a window containing Geometrical tracery to the centre and a cusped lancet to the right. A gabled timber porch covers a pointed, chamfered doorway on the left. The west window is of two cusped lights with a quatrefoil above, and a foliated label-stop to the hoodmould. A stone dentilled eaves cornice runs along the north and south sides, continuing to the chancel. The chancel features two cusped lancets to the south and an east window of three lights with Geometrical tracery, a hoodmould, and floriated label-stops. The north chancel aisle has a single cusped window to the west of a shouldered doorway, with a lean-to hood carried down from the roof. The east window of the aisle is similar to that of the chancel.

Inside, the nave and chancel have trussed rafter roofs. A pointed chancel arch is supported by richly foliated corbelled responds. The north chancel arcade comprises three bays with two clustered columns supporting foliated capitals, and pierced trefoils above the spandrels. A pointed, single-chamfered doorway leads to the tower. Fittings and furnishings date from around 1860 or later, including a pulpit and an octagonal font (circa 1868). A 19th-century copy of Van Eyck’s Triptych for Ghent Cathedral is located near the south door. A marble and mosaic reredos, dating from around 1897, is situated alongside encaustic tiles in the sanctuary. Stained glass in the chancel is likely from around 1864, and the west window commemorates Rowland Whitehall Kenyon (died 1873). A plain wall memorial to the founder is set into the chancel’s south side. A plaster copy of an original monument by Thomas Carline of Shrewsbury, depicting a sleeping child, commemorates Henry, son of Thomas Kenyon (died 1827), at the west end of the nave.