Church Of St Paul

The Church of St Paul, also formerly known as the Church of St Paul Bentley Heath, was built in 1878, designed by EC Lee. It is constructed of split flint walls with stone dressings and corners, topped with a flat red tile roof. The building is in the Early English style.

The church comprises a nave with a single south aisle and a porch at the northwest end; a chancel with a vestry to the north and an organ chamber to the south; and a tower rising above the vestry. The principal, north elevation is east-west, with the chancel featuring three lancet windows. The square tower has a projecting round stair tower on its northeast and northwest corners, buttressed for support. The tower’s ground-floor window is of four grouped lights set within a two-centre arch, with a quatrefoil light in the tympanum, and an upper louvred lancet belfry opening featuring inner twin lancets and pierced tracery. A broach spire with lucarnes and shingles tops the tower. The nave’s north side has four identical lancet windows, each with two inner lancets and upper pierced quatrefoils, as does the south aisle. A string course and lower quatrefoil pierced vents run along the nave and aisle walls. The northwest porch has a lancet arch supported by marble shafts with carved Early English style capitals, a gabled roof, and side lighting of four trefoiled lancets; a boarded, two-leaved door is fitted with ornamental iron strap hinges.

The interior features a five-bay nave and aisle with alternating simple octagonal and round piers, each with square capitals ornamented with depictions of prophets and birds. The pulpit is made of alabaster with trefoiled niches and figures of Christ and the evangelists. The cylindrical font sits on a cylindrical shaft and base, with a rim of molded alabaster, decorated with two bands of alternating leaves and birds in an Arts and Crafts style. The east window of the chancel is framed by brown marble colonnettes. The alabaster reredos features a pinnacled and crocketed canopy, depicting Christ carrying the cross with Roman soldiers, Simon, and the three Marys. The church is part of a group that includes the lych gate.