Pevsner’ Description

Parish church. Core of circa 1500 with C17 and C18 additions, heavily restored and partially rebuilt in 1842 by Scott and Moffat. Sandstone ashlar encapsulating a timber-framed core; plain tile roof with shaped tile bands and stone coped verge. West tower, 4-bay nave with side aisles; 2-bay chancel.heads.

West tower. Early C18, four stages with diagonal buttresses and moulded cornice at the base of a coped parapet with corner pilaster strips. West door to the left with 4-centred arch. Possible former south door, now a window, with semicircular head and ogee moulded surround. Second stage west window of two semicircular headed lights. 4-centred belfry windows of two trefoil-headed lights and Y-tracery with ogee-moulded surrounds. Nave and aisles. Both aisles have slim buttresses at the bay divisions and corners, the latter being diagonally placed; and square-headed windows with three trefoil-headed lights, panel tracery and returned hood moulds. Similar east and west window of two lights. Coped aisle parapets with string course incorporating carved human heads. C19 timber-framed north and south porches, each with pointed entrance, braced king post in the gable, and shaped barge boards. Timber-framed clerestory with diagonal braces between windows of two trefoil-headed lights and sunken spandrels. Chancel. 1610. Chamfered plinth and slim buttresses, those at the corners projecting diagonally. Each side has a square headed window of 3 trefoil-headed lights with sunken spandrels and a hollow chamfered surround. Priest’s door to the south with pointed arch and wave moulded surround. Large 5-light pointed east window with sub-arcuated Perpendicular tracery and hollow chamfered hood mould terminating in carved human heads.

Interior. Timber arcades of circa 1500: octagonal columns with moulded capitals, from which spring arched braces with ogee and quarter-round mouldings, which form the arches of the arcades and which brace the tie beams of the main roof trusses. The columns continue upwards to the wall plate of the clerestory showing this to be an original feature even though it has been subject to considerable restoration. Open timber roof with cambered and brattished tie beams and cambered collars; raking struts extend between the two; two pairs of moulded purlins and two sets of curved wind braces. C19 aisle roofs of slanting tie beams on curved braces. Arch-braced collar roof of 1610 over the chancel; the braces spring from console brackets and there are decorative pendants. Fittings. Baluster font in the chancel with scalloped basin, probably C17. Wall panelling around the sanctuary of similar date. C19 stalls decorated with poppy heads. Chapel in the east bay of the north aisle with early C16 screen: Perpendicular with linenfold panels and open arches above, and a carved frieze of vine leaves, grapes and a continuous undulating stem. C17 hexagonal pulpit with two tiers of panels carved with semi-circular arches springing from Ionic columns; gadrooning around the top and guilloche ornament to the edges. C19 pine pews. Font, probably C13: cylindrical stem with moulded base, and quatrefoil section basin. Monuments. Ralph Egerton, died 1610: three kneeling figures: man, woman, and female child; heraldic shields in the background, Ionic columns to each side and a top with central semi-circular arch. George Tollet and Elizabeth Toilet, erected 1768: architectural tablet with open semi-circular pediment, and urns crowning the corners.

Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Staffordshire, (1974), p68