Church of St Stephen

Church of St Stephen

An Anglican church built between 1873 and 1883 to a design by John Middleton, in the Decorated style, with later additions from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The church is constructed of rough-faced local stone with ashlar quoins and Bath stone dressings. Architectural embellishments use contrasting blue Forest stone and red Mansfield stone, as well as red granite and marble. The pitched roof is covered in plain tiles with decorative ridge tiles and coped gables.

The building follows a cruciform plan comprising a six-bay aisled nave with north and south porches at the west end, two-bay north and south transepts, and a single-bay chancel with an attached vestry to the north and Lady Chapel to the south.

The church stands on a chamfered plinth. Most windows are set within pointed-arched openings decorated with trefoil, quatrefoil and cinquefoil detailing. The west end features a central gable with buttresses on either side topped by octagonal platforms. A central half-height buttress supports a statue of St Stephen beneath a canopy, above which is an oculus with trefoil and quatrefoil decoration. On either side are two-light windows with pointed arches on redstone columns and hoodmoulds. The gable is surmounted by a stone cross. The flanking aisle bays each contain a two-light window.

The south pitched-roof porch has a doorway with three orders of arches on slender redstone shafts topped with roll moulding, and a pair of plank doors with ornate hinges. Above the arches are two foliate-carved roundels flanking a statue of St Stephen. Inside the porch is another similar archway and plank door. The flat-roofed north porch has a doorway and door in a similar style. The left return contains three lancet windows, a stair turret to the rear, and a further plank door. The aisles have six bays divided by buttresses, each bay containing a two-light window under a hood mould. The clerestory above both aisles has a row of oculi. The south and north transepts each contain a pair of two-light windows and a rose window at the apex, with entrances on the returns facing the nave. The east elevation has a central gable framed by buttresses and a large central chancel window with four lights, two trefoil oculi and a central rose light, all within a pointed arch and topped by a hoodmould with square stops. Flanking the gable are two single-storey wings: the vestry to the right contains a plank door and two lancet windows, with a pair of two-light windows on its return; the Lady Chapel to the left has three lancet windows with trefoil heads and one on each return, with a commemorative stone at the base inscribed 'TO THE FALLEN/ 1914-1919'.

The interior features polychromatic stonework. The west end wall incorporates an arcaded screen (moved from the east end in 1897) decorated with statues of the "eleven faithful apostles" and Christ in an ornate canopied niche above. Stone arcades line either side of the nave with six pointed arches in two orders, constructed of alternating blue Forest and white Bath stone voussoirs supported by clusters of blue stone columns. Slender corbelled shafts support the trusses of a wooden barrel-vaulted ceiling decorated with raised panels. The double-chamfered chancel arch has similar alternating coloured voussoirs; the inner arch is supported by marble columns with foliate corbels. The chancel is richly decorated with pairs of polished corbelled stone shafts supporting carved arch-braced trusses. Arcades on either side of the chancel are supported by marble columns with foliate capitals. The north arcade contains the organ and accesses the vestry beyond. The south arcade is glazed and opens to the chapel, reordered in the mid-20th century as a First World War Memorial Lady Chapel. The east wall of the chapel is inscribed with the names of the fallen; beyond the arch is the eastern apse containing the chapel altar. A wooden screen by Barnard (1925-6) separates the transept from the aisle.

Notable fittings include a stone and marble font in the south west corner and a painted statue of St Stephen in the north porch. Middleton designed key internal fittings including the altar and panelled tracery pulpit. A wrought-iron chancel screen was designed by H A Prothero and added in 1897. Stained glass windows are by Burlison & Gryllis, Heaton, Butler and Bayne, T F Curtis, and Ward & Hughes. Windows by J Eadie Reid, originally placed in the early-20th-century Lady Chapel apse, were reset in 1963 into the south transept. Canopied figures of King Alfred and Queen Victoria flanking the east chancel window were added by H H Martyn & Co in 1914. A hanging rood by E A Roiser was added in 1947. Panelling within the Lady Chapel, added 1929-30, is by W E Ellery Anderson. Other fittings include an organ, brass lectern and silver foundation trowel.