Church Of St Augustine Of Canterbury

Church of St Augustine of Canterbury, Rugeley

This is a church built in 1822-23, attributed to H J Underwood of Oxford, designed in a loosely Perpendicular Gothic style. The eastern arm was added c.1904 by Frank Pearson in Perpendicular style. The building incorporates fittings from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with evidence of an intention to rebuild the nave that was never executed.

The structure is built in ashlar masonry with slate roofs and cast iron roof trusses to the nave. The plan comprises a 5-bay clerestoried nave with galleries on three sides, lean-to north and south aisles with gallery stairs at the west ends, and a west tower functioning as a porch. The eastern end consists of a chancel with a two and single-storey southeast organ chamber-cum-vestry roofed at right angles to the chancel, plus a north chancel chapel with a gabled west-east roof.

The two building phases contrast visibly, though the later work carefully balances the earlier. The 1820s phase features windows with flat-faced, hollow-moulded, uncusped tracery. The very tall two-stage west tower has polygonal buttresses and an embattled parapet. The tower contains a Tudor-arched west doorway with an 1820s two-leaf door and a large four-light Tudor-arched window above with intersecting tracery. The belfry windows are equally large, Tudor-arched and traceried. The lean-to aisles have plain parapets and set-back buttresses with three-light 1820s windows; the clerestory has two-light Y-traceried windows. The south side features Tudor-arched doorways in the west and east bays with 1820s doors. The west ends of the aisles curve inward to meet the tower wall.

Frank Pearson's eastern arm rises commandingly tall from the south, presenting a substantial and picturesque contrast to the nave and tower. The chancel is very tall with angle buttresses topped by gables, a five-light Perpendicular-style east window with a crocketted ogee hoodmould, and a four-light window on the south side. The north chancel chapel is buttressed with high-set Perpendicular-style traceried windows and includes a northwest turret with pyramidal stone-slate roof. The organ chamber-cum-vestry block to the southeast is gabled to the south with a parapet, featuring square-headed ground floor windows with cusped lights and a two-light traceried window in the gable of the two-storey portion, which has a lateral east-side stack.

Inside, the 1904 chancel arch springs from responds with clustered shafts. The 1904 arch springers indicate unexecuted plans to rebuild the nave. A blind Gothick arch rises above the gallery to the tower. The nave arcades have tall quatrefoil-section piers with Tudor arches. The shallow-pitched nave roof is divided into panels by moulded members, with panels painted, and slender cast iron roof trusses featuring vertical struts in the spandrels with arched braces. The gallery frontals are timber, decorated with relief Gothic-arched motifs. The west gallery is supported on two cast iron columns. The chancel roof is canted and divided into panels by moulded ribs. A triple arcade of depressed arches on quatrefoil columns connects the chancel to the northeast chapel, which also has a depressed-arched roof divided into panels.

The sanctuary reredos, carved in Italy and given to the church in 1930, stands above sanctuary wood panelling that incorporates timber sedilia, also likely from c.1930. An alabaster font given in 1874 has a round bowl with a carved cornice, supported on a carved alabaster stem with green marble shafts and a moulded alabaster base. A 1907 polygonal timber pulpit stands on an octagonal timber stem with timber shafts, featuring pierced traceried sides and a carving of St Augustine. The choir stalls and frontals display elaborately carved ends decorated with blind tracery, with poppyhead finials on the seats. Nave benches have square-headed ends with recessed panels. The eastern arm contains a set of windows by Kempe.

Building materials from the old church were sold in the 1820s to fund the new building. The nave and tower cost £6,501.

The church stands in a cleared churchyard opposite the ruined medieval parish church and adjacent to the Trent and Merseyside canal. The 1822-23 nave, aisles and tower represent an historically important early, ambitious and large-scale example of Gothic Revival, with its galleries remaining intact. Frank Pearson's 1904 eastern arm both contrasts with and carefully balances the earlier work.