Church Of St Werburgh

Church of St Werburgh

A parish church with a 12th-century core, extensively rebuilt and extended from the 13th century onwards. The building comprises a tower, nave with north and south aisles, and chancel, constructed of coursed and finely dressed sandstone blocks. Lead roofs cover the nave and aisles, hidden behind parapets, while Welsh slate covers the chancel with verge parapets.

The tower is of 14th-century date with five stages. Diagonal buttresses of three stages rise to the angles, where pinnacles and gargoyles are set. The crenellated parapet is decorated with a fretted arcade frieze of pointed arches below. The top stage was entirely rebuilt to the Incumbent's design in 1883. Strings define the two upper stages. The bell chamber has paired, labelled, pointed openings of two lights with panel tracery above, and below these are single similar windows to the lower stage. The west window is pointed with five lights in two tiers, and four-centred arch doors are set below. On the south side of the first stage is a niche of 1842 containing a statue of St Werburgh, with a pointed door beneath.

The south aisle dates mainly to the 19th century and comprises four unequal bays, alternately short and long, divided by three-stage buttresses finished as gabletted pinnacles above the parapet. Three-light labelled pointed windows with panel tracery light all bays except the right of centre, which has two lights; a pointed labelled door is set to the left. The clerestory contains three bays inset from the ends, each with three-light windows with panel tracery and three-centred labelled heads.

The north aisle was rebuilt in 1824 and altered in 1870, with a similar design to the south aisle. The chancel is of significantly different character, most notably in its steeply pitched roof and Decorated windows. It comprises three bays divided by two-stage buttresses. Two-light pointed windows light each bay, with one single-light window to the south-west corner. A priest door is set against the inner buttress of the east bay. A five-light pointed east window is flanked by a flat-roofed vestry attached to the north. The north and south aisles were rebuilt and refaced in 1824 and 1869 respectively, while the chancel was rebuilt in 1862 by the Nottingham architects Hine and Evans.

The interior contains a nave of four bays with double-chamfered pointed arches and moulded capitals on round columns. The Norman columns survive to the north, with replicas to the south. A pointed chancel arch separates the nave from the chancel. The nave roof features cambered and moulded ties with painted bosses apparently of 15th-century date but inscribed 1698.

The chancel displays a unified decorative scheme with a painted diagonally boarded roof and painted walls depicting religious scenes in subdued colours. A stone and alabaster pulpit in the style of Street stands within, circular on clustered columns and surrounded by a trefoil-headed blind arcade on marble columns. The font is of coloured local alabaster and imported marble, square on four extended columns and built over a carved Norman font, still visible within the present composition.

Medieval glass remains in the south aisle and south-east window. The east and west windows date to 1894 and are by Ward and Hughes. The lower part of the tower walls is covered in purpose-made glazed tiles of 1883, commissioned as a family memorial. Two Saxon crosses are built into the west wall adjacent to the south door.

The church contains numerous monuments of note. An alabaster monument to Sir John de Hanbury, died 1303, stands in the east of the south aisle. It comprises a recumbent effigy clasping a sword with crossed legs and a dog at its feet. This monument may represent a later attempt by the Hanbury family to establish their lineage; if authentic, it would be among the earliest alabaster monuments in England. Ralph Adderley, died 1595, is commemorated by a large alabaster chest tomb to the north-east of the sanctuary, its top slab incised with three figures of Ralph and his two wives, with moulded edge and sides carved with kneeling figures of children at the opposite end. Sir Charles Egerton, died 1624, is memorialised in alabaster with a reclining figure in a moulded segmental-arch canopied niche. Puritan bust plaques to Katherine Agard, died 1620, and her daughter Ann Woollocke, both depicted with ruffs and steeple hats, occupy the south-west chancel, as does a similar monument to Dorothy Villiers, died 1665. The east corner of the north aisle contains a monument to Sir John Egerton, died 1662, similar in design to the 1624 Egerton monument but with a damaged canopy. Also in the north aisle to the west is a monument to John Wilson, died 1839, a neo-classical low-relief marble plaque depicting a seated woman within Doric surrounds, by the sculptor Hollins. A brass beneath the chancel steps commemorates Sir John Cheyne, Rector from 1363 to 1391, showing a much-worn figure in cassock, surplice, almace and cope. A low-relief carved cross plaque also marks the Adderley memorial.