Parish Church Of St Augustine Of Hippo

The Parish Church of St Augustine of Hippo is an Anglican parish church built in 1868 in a 13th-century style by Julius Alfred Chatwin (1830-1907), a prominent ecclesiastical architect. The tower and spire were added to the south side in 1876, also by Chatwin. In 1968, to mark the church's centenary, a narthex porch was built to the west following a design by Philip Boughton Chatwin (1873-1964), nephew and colleague of Julius Alfred Chatwin.

The church is constructed of rock-faced sandstone with limestone banding and plain clay tile roofs. The interior walls are finished in sandstone and limestone ashlar. The building comprises an aisled and clerestoried nave, transepts, an apsidal chancel, and the later lean-to narthex at the west end. The tower and spire rise from the base of the south transept.

The exterior elevations are stone set on a slightly projecting plinth of larger stone blocks. The four-bay nave has a steeply-pitched roof with lean-to aisles below and a clerestory above. The aisle bays are articulated by buttresses with two off-sets; between them are three-light windows with cinquefoils in the tracery. The clerestory windows are spherical triangles with alternating tracery in cinquefoils and sexfoils. The north transept features diagonal buttresses, a high three-light traceried window, and a spherical triangular window set in the gable. Adjacent to the north transept, the north-east vestry has diagonal buttresses and a very tall hipped pavilion-type roof. The chancel terminates in a polygonal east end with diagonal buttresses with two off-sets and gables. Its two-light windows display various tracery patterns.

The tower, which also forms the south transept, has gabled angle buttresses and is divided into three stages. The lower stage contains a three-light traceried window. The tall bell-stage has high two-light louvred openings and is surmounted by crocketed pinnacles. The third stage is recessed and supports a delicate corona that marks the transition between the tower and the slender spire above. The west narthex is lean-to with a gabled entrance housing paired doorways with attached columns and a tympanum with relief panels depicting scenes from the life of St Augustine.

Inside, the main entrance through the west narthex porch leads to a space with a crown-post roof structure and polychrome polished stone floor. The interior of the main church is sandstone ashlar with limestone banding. The nave has a false hammer-beam roof. The four-bay nave arcades consist of pointed arches carried on round piers with detailed foliate and floral capitals showing plants from all seasons. Attached columns at the east and west ends of the nave feature human heads personifying the seasons. The roof trusses spring from elaborate corbels with clustered columns and carved figures of the Apostles.

The north transept houses the baptistery, designed by George Pace, with stone bench seating and a recessed circular font of rough-faced limestone. The south transept and part of the south aisle are occupied by the Lady Chapel, divided from the body of the church by a timber screen made by Robert Panchieri with carved and pierced decoration.

The chancel has a painted angel ceiling, polychrome tiled floor, and extensive rich carved decoration carried throughout the church. The carving is by John Roddis of Birmingham and members of the Bromsgrove Guild. The apsidal east end contains a canopied reredos with deep relief of the Last Supper, flanked by blind Early English arcades with cusping, crenellation and other embellishments. The choir stalls and pews are of hardwood, the choir stalls with decoratively carved ends. The stone pulpit, situated at the foot of the chancel arch on its north side, has deeply cut relief panels showing the Sermon on the Mount, Moses and St Augustine, and is reached by an integral stone stair.

The wealthy suburb of Edgbaston developed throughout the 19th century from about 1810 under the auspices of the Lords of the Manor, the Gough-Calthorpe family. Large numbers of middle-class houses were built with new roads laid out periodically. By 1851, houses had been built along the main route from the city centre, the Hagley Road, as far as Rotton Park Street. As the population grew, the Church of St George was consecrated in 1838 and the Church of St James in 1852. In 1864, Joseph Gillott, a successful pen manufacturer who lived in Westbourne Road and owned land immediately to the north of the Hagley Road, resolved to instigate the building of a new church, as the existing buildings could no longer accommodate the 18,000 residents of Edgbaston. He discussed the siting of the new church with Julius Alfred Chatwin, the foremost ecclesiastical architect in the city. Chatwin suggested creating an island site just north of the Hagley Road from which a new straight road, now St Augustine's Road, would run. The site was donated to the church authorities and £9,000 was raised in subscriptions for the cost of the building. Chatwin won an open competition for the design. The building, comprising chancel, nave, aisles and north transept, was consecrated by the Bishop of Worcester in 1868 as a chapel of ease to the Church of St Bartholomew, Edgbaston. The tower and spire were added in 1876 at a cost of £4,000. A stained glass window depicting St Augustine was donated by the congregation and set in the south transept under the tower. A parish was assigned to St Augustine's in 1889, formed from part of the parish of St Bartholomew.

A Lady Chapel was created in the south aisle and transept around 1930, divided from the body of the church by a pierced timber screen carved by Robert Panchieri. During enemy action in 1940, the window depicting St Augustine was lost as a result of bombing but was replaced after the war, though with a catalogue design mistakenly showing St Augustine of Canterbury rather than St Augustine of Hippo. In 1964, a baptistery was created in the north transept, designed by the renowned mid-20th-century church architect George Pace (1915-75), including a new font to his design. The narthex porch added in 1968 was to an earlier design by Philip Boughton Chatwin.