Church Of St Agnes Including Boundary Walls And Lych Gate

Church of St Agnes, Colmore Crescent, Moseley

St Agnes Church is an Anglican church built between 1883 and 1893, with the tower completed in 1931–32. It was designed by the Birmingham architect William Davis following a competition win in 1882, with the tower's upper stage completed by C. E. Bateman. The church takes its name from Canon Colmore's wife, Agnes. The building contract was awarded to William Bloore, and the church was constructed in two stages: 1883–84 and 1892–93.

The church is built in the Decorated Gothic style, constructed from rusticated Hampstead red sandstone with Bath stone dressings. The roof is covered with banded tiles, and the interior walls are exposed Bath stone.

The plan comprises a nave with north and south aisles, chancel, north and south transepts, south vestry, north organ chamber, north porch, west porch and west tower. The church is orientated east to west.

The west end features a central tower of two stages. The lower stage, by Davis, is rusticated sandstone with three rows of alternating red and white tiles and blind tracery to the south and north sides. The upper stage, by Bateman, is Bath stone with a battlemented parapet and crocketed pinnacles at the four corners. Each face of the upper stage has a pair of rectangular louvered windows with blind tracery. The west face of the tower contains a tracery window with three cusped lancets with a central sexfoil and quatrefoil either side. The doorway is a recessed pointed brick arch of two orders supported on round piers with foliate capitals. The porch has a triangular gable end with a cinquefoil at the centre and a hood mould to the pointed arch doorway with head stops. Stone tiles with floral motifs flank either side of the gable. Pilasters either side of the doorway have triangular capitals with pointed trefoil motif.

The north and south aisles are single-storey structures of six bays. Each aisle features shallow buttresses dividing pairs of cusped windows within pointed stone arch openings with hood mould and central foliate stop. The nave has six clerestorey windows, each consisting of three cusped lights with a sexfoil above and quatrefoil either side.

To the eastern end are the transepts, each with a tracery window of five cusped lights with three sexfoils above. At the angle between the west tower and the south elevation stands an octagonal rusticated stone turret with a battlemented parapet. The south elevation includes an extended vestry to the east end, and the north elevation contains the organ chamber. At the west end of the north elevation is a gabled porch with a central trefoil and recessed pointed arch doorway. The outer corners are marked by angle buttresses surmounted by turrets with plain pinnacles.

The chancel's east window is divided into three sections. The central window comprises three tall lancet lights with cusped heads, a sexfoil above the centre, and quatrefoils either side, set within a moulded pointed arch with engaged shafts. The outer windows each contain a single lancet light with a cusped head and quatrefoil above, similarly set within a moulded pointed arch with engaged shafts. The four corners of the chancel have stone turrets with blind arcading and plain pinnacles.

The interior is lined with exposed Bath stone. The six-bay arcades are formed from round stone piers supporting pointed arches with moulded impost and hood mould with head stops. Cluster piers support the pointed chancel arch. The roof is an arch-braced scissor and collar rafter construction, supported on round moulded stone corbels with marble shafts and moulded stone pendants. The floor comprises wood block with tiles to the side and nave aisles.

Contemporary fixtures and fittings include a stone font, relocated to the south aisle with the baptistery, bearing the inscription "PARVULI, PARVULIS RENASCITURIS RENAT" (The children who have been born again in Baptism to the children who will be born again). The east window, designed by Ballantyne and Gardiner of Edinburgh, depicts "Christ in Glory worshipped by prophets and saints" and was created to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897.

Most of the oak joinery is mid-20th century, designed by James Swan in a late Perpendicular Gothic style and carved by Robert Pancheri of The Bromsgrove Guild. This includes a richly carved pulpit, font cover, baptistery screens, lectern and chancel seating.

The stained glass is largely 20th century. Windows in the south aisle were created by John Hardman Studio in 1952. Further windows in the south aisle, south transept (unfinished) and north aisle were designed by Claude Price between 1949 and 1955. A window at the west end of the north aisle was created by Harry Payne in 1909 with the theme "Suffer the Little Children".

The reordered chancel includes a stone reredos by Bolton & Son of Cheltenham with panelling to the chancel walls as a memorial to the First World War, completed in 1920. The reredos and panelling feature marble to the niches with marble piers. The three central niches contain statues of St Agnes, Christ and St George. The two niches either side hold symbolic representations of the four gospel writers in stone relief roundels. Six angel statues are also incorporated into the reredos and panelling. The oak altar features a carved relief of the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) to the centre with flanking angels. The organ at the west end is by William Hill & Son of London and was relocated from the redundant St Mark's Church, Leicester.

The sandstone churchyard wall dates from circa 1880s. A memorial lychgate was built in 1938.

In December 1940, a bomb exploded in the south-west corner of the churchyard, causing damage including the destruction of the aisle windows, which were largely replaced in the 1950s, and partial destruction of the banded tile roof.