Church Of St Matthias

The Church of St Matthias is an Anglican church located in Hanford, Stoke on Trent. The chancel was added in 1862 by T. H. Rushworth, while the rest of the church was rebuilt in 1868 by Charles Lynam. It is constructed of Flemish and English bond red brick with stone dressings, featuring plain clay tile roofs that have gabled ends and exposed rafter ends. The church showcases a High Victorian Gothic style, with a five-bay nave that includes a gallery at the west end, north and south aisles, a small southwest tower, and a south porch.

The exterior features stone lancet windows with one, two, and three lights in the aisles, and clerestory windows with two lights and shouldered heads. The west window has four lights with plate tracery. The small brick tower at the southwest corner has a timber lattice belfry and a short pyramidal tiled spire topped with a weathervane. The south doorway is a two-centred arch with plank doors that have wrought-iron hinges, leading to a large open timber porch with wrought-iron gates. The chancel is supported by large buttresses with weathered and gableted set-offs, and has continuous moulded strings that form cills and hoods to small lancets, along with a moulded stone eaves cornice and a triple lancet east window with a hoodmould.

Inside, the church remains unaltered, featuring exposed brick walls and an arch-braced nave roof. The five-bay north and south arcades have chamfered brick two-centred arches on piers with blue brick shafts and moulded stone capitals. The gallery at the west end has a wooden lattice balustrade. The chancel boasts a stone vaulted roof with transverse ribs and a clerestory that has a round-arch arcade on squat colonnettes with carved capitals. The chancel arch is supported by similar colonnettes on corbels, and the east window's triple lancets have shafts and moulded arches. The furnishings are intact, including an inlaid marble reredos, a Gothic stone pulpit, choir stalls with wrought-iron stanchions, benches, and encaustic floor tiles.