St Crispin Hospital Chapel

St Crispin Hospital Chapel

Chapel built in 1887 by Robert Griffiths of Stafford, with minor alterations in the 20th century. The building is constructed in rock-faced ironstone in small rectangular blocks with limestone dressings and plain tile roofs.

The chapel comprises a chancel, vestry, organ chamber, aisled nave and south porch, designed in the Early Gothic style. The chancel features a 3-light east window with a large roundel to the head, filled with 7 small roundels and a hood mould. Single-light windows on the north and south sides have quatrefoil heads. The organ chamber projects to the south and has an octagonal east window with plate tracery of 8 roundels surrounding an 8-foiled central roundel, and a cinquefoiled rose window to the south. The vestry on the north side has a 2-light east window with Y-tracery and a roll-moulded east door with hood mould. To the north and porch are 1-light cinquefoil-headed windows. The porch contains a blocked round trefoil-headed door with hood mould and a cusped 1-light window to the east side.

The nave has quatrefoil clerestory windows above the aisles, which stop short of the 2 western bays. The aisles have 2-light windows with Y-tracery and geometrical tracery to alternate windows, those at the west ends having hood moulds. The south door has a chamfered arch with double-leaf doors carrying ornamental hinges and a hood mould. The south porch has a double-chamfered doorway with dog-toothed hood mould and cusped 1-light windows to the east and west.

The west end of the nave, or narthex, has 1-light windows at high level on the north and south with quatrefoil heads and a polygonal stair turret to the south-west. The turret serves the gallery and has a roll-moulded door to the south, an arcaded upper storey blank to the east, and small 1-light chamfered windows to other sides, topped by a pyramidal roof with wrought-iron finial. The west front of the nave has a 4-bay arcade with shafts, moulded bases and capitals and a hood mould framing a pair of central doors with caernarvon-arched heads and blank quatrefoils above, flanked by lancet windows. A 3-light west window has an 8-foiled roundel to the head with hood mould. A bell-cote in the gable has a dog-toothed arch framing the bell and a tall gable with wrought-iron finial and weather-vane.

Externally, the building has a chamfered plinth, string courses and chamfered stone eaves. Stone-coped gables with kneelers are present, along with a foliated stone cross to the chancel gable and a wrought-iron cross to the east gable of the nave. Offset angle buttresses and offset buttresses between bays provide structural support.

The interior contains a raised sanctuary in the chancel with an ornamental tiled reredos and side walls, encaustic tiled floors and a scissor truss roof. The nave has 4-bay arcades with circular columns, chamfered plinths, moulded capitals and double-chamfered arches. A west gallery with rooms below on either side of the entrance passages were formerly used for observing patients' behaviour. The nave has an arch-braced collar truss roof and encaustic tiled floors. A complete scheme of polychromatic decoration and wall paintings of historical, biblical and legendary figures with portrait heads of well-known local residents and members of staff was executed by H Bird and G H B Holland in 1953. An early 18th-century small veined white marble octagonal font with moulded bowl on baluster, moulded plinth and black marble base is present. A polygonal stone pulpit with timber handrail to the steps and a complete set of pitch pine pews, stalls and desks remain. An organ of 1905 is housed in a painted case.