Church Of St Werburgh

Church of St Werburgh

Church. The tower dates to 1758; the remainder was built in 1879 by John Bevan. The building is constructed of snecked limestone ashlar with a tile roof. It comprises an aisled nave and chancel, a west porch and south-west tower, designed in Perpendicular Gothic Revival style.

The exterior features moulded plinths and sill drip courses throughout. The east end displays a transomed 7-light window with a crocketed hood, clasping buttresses with cornices and gargoyles, and panelled gablet finials. The north aisle extends for 5 bays separated by buttresses, with a hooded door in the second bay from the west; the parapet features a blind traceried arcade. A lower single-pitch vestry stands at the east end, gabled to the north with a 3-centred arched east doorway between small buttresses. This rises through the eaves into a gable with a mullioned overlight and drip course bearing lion-head gutterspouts. The south aisle has a plain parapet and a Lady Chapel with a crenellated parapet.

The 5-stage tower is divided by drip moulds and has a south-west octagonal stair turret. The south door features a wide 2-centred arch with paired colonnettes with round capitals within a moulded label, with quatrefoils and mouchettes in the spandrels. The first stage has a 3-light window and the second stage a 2-light window. The 3rd and 4th stages have blind traceried belfry windows of 3 panels, louvred to the middle. An open crenellated parapet crowns the tower with square corner pinnacles to the buttresses and an octagonal top to the stair tower with an open pyramidal top. The west porch has a shouldered gable with tracery panels below the apex, a 4-light window, gables with clasping buttresses and a pinnacle to the left bearing tracery panels.

Interior features include a reredos with a central carved panel depicting the Last Supper with an openwork parapet, flanked by two slate panels. An arch of 2 orders to the south contains the organ loft. The roof displays timber tracery and a cornice with angels holding shields. The chancel arch has 3 attached shafts. The nave arcade comprises 6 bays on slender columns with attached shafts and foliate capitals, supporting a waggon roof on shield corbels. The arch-braced truss aisle roofs bear on similar corbels. The tower base contains fan vaulting.

Fittings include choir stalls with poppy heads, a large octagonal pulpit with panelled sides and wrought-iron handrail, and timber traceried screens below the tower and around the door. A corner vestry fireplace features a Tudor arch with panels above and a billeted top. Wall tablets from the late 18th and 19th centuries commemorate various individuals. A dresser tomb to John Barker, buried in the old Church of St Werburgh in 1607, features a panelled base, Corinthian shafts and a plain entablature, with a recumbent figure resting on an elbow set within a panel surrounded by scrolls.

The medieval St Werburgh's on Corn Street was rebuilt by James Bridges in 1758 in a manner described as "by eighteenth century standards notably conservative and cautious". After demolition in 1877, Bevan re-used parts of the original structure on the current site.