Church Of Holy Trinity

CHIRBURY C.P. MIDDLETON SO 29 NE

8/68 Church of Holy Trinity -

• II

Chapel of ease, now parish church. 1843 by Edward Haycock. Uncoursed limestone and shale rubble with ashlar dressings; machine tile roofs have coped verges on stone kneelers. Nave, chancel with polygonal apse, transepts, south-west vestry and west porch; lancet style. Nave: in 2 bays; lancets with hoodmoulds and moulded string course carried around rest of church on north; gabled west porch and bellcote to west gable. Transepts: have paired lancets in north and south walls, former with hoodmoulds; south transept with lean-to vestry abutting on west. Short one-bay chancel has polygonal apse with lancets to easternmost sides, all with hoodmoulds. Interior: multi-strutted collar and tie beam roof in 5 bays to nave presumably by Haycock and wooden board in north transept commemorates erection of chapel in 1843. Nearly all the fittings and furnishings are the work of Revd. Waldegrave Brewster, vicar from 1872 to 1901. Between 1876 and 1884 he carved the capitals of the octagonal red sandstone transept pillars with signs of the Zodiac (south) and agricultural scenes (north), the corbels to the sanctuary arch (woman's head on north and green man on south) and the stone corbel heads to the sanctuary's wooden vaulting. He was also responsible for the mosaic altar and dado panelling, font and the carved bench ends in the nave and chancel, the former with a variety of animal, human and grotesque heads. Also dating from his incumbency are the painted mural decoration, the altar rail with its twisted iron supports and the wrought-iron candelabra fixed to nave walls and benches. Stained glass in sanctuary by Kempe and Tower (1915). The parish of Middleton was created in 1845 out of parts of Chirbury and Church Stoke (Powys). B.O.E. p.199; D.H.S. Cranage, The Churches of Shropshire, Part 7 (1905) p.551.

Listing NGR: SO2971899342