Hatherton United Reformed Church

Hatherton United Reformed Church

Presbyterian Church, Sunday School and Parish Hall designed by John Cotton and Henry Hill McConnal in 1878 and opened in 1882. The contractors were W Trow and sons, with stone carving undertaken by Roddis of Birmingham.

The building is constructed of red and buff-coloured brick laid in English Bond with diapering and stone dressings, with a plain tile roof.

The plan comprises an aisled nave with cast iron columns to the sides, central and side pews, and a northern gallery. At the south end is a dais with an encased organ and choir stalls. A two-storey building adjoins the south end of the church, housing the Sunday School at ground floor level. A first floor was added in 1904 to form the parish hall, with a stage at its eastern end.

The street front onto Hatherton Road features a tower to the left. The tower has a square lower section that dies back via offsets to an octagonal upper body. At street level is a double doorway with an arched head and tympanum, above which is a lancet with a cusped head. The octagonal upper stage has lancets with louvres and joined gablets to their heads. The main body of the church has a projecting gabled porch with two sets of double doors and a roundel to the apex. Above this is a three-light lancet with cusped heads to the lights and a rose to the head. The east and west flanks are similar, each having at their centre paired, gabled triple-lancets with stone surrounds, with two-light lancet windows either side featuring a quatrefoil to the apex in a stone surround. A wheelchair ramp has been added to the east side, connecting to the minister's door at its southern end.

The southern block housing the Sunday School and parish hall has its ridge running east-west. The western gable end, facing Darwall Street, is more richly treated and has three bays with segment-headed multi-pane windows to the ground floor set within pointed relieving arches with hood moulds. The first floor has three lancet windows with a running hood mould. An angled staircase turret occupies the re-entrant angle between the church and Sunday school, featuring cusped lancets and a tablet recording the 1904 enlargement. The east gable end is simpler, with lancets either side of a chimney. Its south front has seven evenly-spaced windows with cambered heads to the ground floor and, to the first floor, two sets of paired lancets rising above the eaves with hipped roofs. Before these in a triangular yard stands a rank of lavatory cubicles for Sunday school children, which have lost their plumbing but retain their lean-to roofs and most of their doors.

Internally, bare brick walling displays patterns of polychromatic brickwork. Lower walls have matchboarded panelling. The wooden pews, dais joinery, organ and gallery all date from the late 19th or early 20th century and were painted and grained in imitation of light oak in the 1930s. The cast iron columns are painted with octagonal bases and moulded capitals, each supporting a wooden spur crossing the aisle space and arched braces connecting to the purlins. Large arched braces cross the nave, with spurs and collar beams all bratished to their upper edges. The former sanctuary at the south end has been adapted as a large organ loft with painted pipes and a wooden case featuring cusped panels and quatrefoils. Before this is a raised dais with seating for congregational elders and a small communion table. Gas pipework has been adapted for electrical lighting, though two decorative metal gasoliers in the form of half-coronas with flares remain at the back of the gallery.

The Sunday School space was adapted at the start of the 20th century to allow access to the upper parish room, with partition walls forming passages to the north and east. At first-floor level, the parish room has stone corbels supporting the roof trusses. Stained glass panels are set to the windows and matchboarding covers the lower walls. The diamond-shaped window in the north wall was originally an exterior window above the altar in the church prior to construction of the parish room.

A Presbyterian congregation has existed in Walsall since the late 17th century, though with various breaks in continuity. Early meeting houses were located at other sites in the town. A revival occurred in 1876 when a group seceded from the Congregationalist chapel and initially worshiped in the Temperance Hall in Freer Street. A competition for the present building was held in 1878 and won by John Cotton of Bromsgrove as principal architect, in association with Henry Hill McConnal. The foundation stone was laid in 1881 and the building opened in May 1882. Interior re-ordering followed, with the organ installed in 1891. Initial plans to place the Sunday school beneath the church were abandoned due to the high water table in the area and the need to provide robust foundations, leading to its construction to the south of the site instead. This single-storey building opened in 1881, but in 1904 it was raised to two storeys with a church hall at first-floor level. In 1926 the choir stalls either side of the dais were re-arranged. The building appears on the First Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1886 with its present footprint as the Presbyterian Church of England. From 1972 it has been known as the Hatherton United Reformed Church. The spire was removed in 1947 due to the eroded condition of its stonework.