Details
TASLEY
823/21/34 TASLEY
09-MAR-70 CHURCH OF ST PETER AND ST PAUL
II
Anglican church built in 1840-41 by Josiah Griffiths.
Materials: Yellow brick with slate roofs.
Plan: Nave with lower and narrower chancel, and west bellcote.
Exterior: Simple Gothic style, with consistent use of coped gables, angle buttresses and stone hood moulds. In the 4-bay buttressed nave each bay is slightly recessed beneath a plain corbel table, with pointed windows under stone hood moulds. An added brick chimney is on the north side. The entrance is in the west front, the central bay of which is brought forward slightly under the bellcote. Its pointed doorway has replacement doors, above which is a pointed window with stone impost band, and a small pointed window, with iron grille, in the gable. The doorway is also flanked by tall and very narrow pointed windows in the outer bays. The gabled bellcote has 2 bells in pointed openings, with pierced roundel above. The 1-bay chancel has pointed north and south windows without hoodmoulds, and a stepped triple east window under linked hood moulds.
Interior: Walls are plastered, and in the nave is a boarded dado. The nave floor has red and black tiles in the central aisle. The 4-bay nave roof is on corbelled brackets and has Gothic enrichment to moulded tie and collar beams, with arches in the spaces between, and boarded ceiling behind. The pointed chancel arch, of painted freestone, is chamfered, on polygonal responds with moulded capitals. The chancel has a simple boarded and canted ceiling. Decorative and encaustic tiles in the floor were probably added later in the C19. A freestone cusped piscina is set low down in the south wall. A vestibule at the west end of the nave is enclosed by ribbed panelling, with pointed double doors to the nave, below a gallery. The gallery front has open arcading above and below vine trails re-used from a late-medieval rood screen. The gallery is reached by closed-string stair in the vestibule.
Principal Fixtures: Several fixtures were salvaged from the old church, including a rood screen, fragments of which were incorporated into a new screen and the west gallery. The screen spanning the chancel arch is made up of C16 fragments and C19 work, and was probably erected there later in the C19 as it obscured the Decalogue, Creed and Lord¿s Prayer on the chancel wall. It has a central doorway flanked by 4 narrower lights, with panelled dado, delicate openwork Gothic tracery, cornice of 2 tiers of vine trails and C19 brattishing. The wooden communion rail has enriched Gothic balusters. In the chancel are pointed metal wall panels of 1841 with painted Ten Commandments, Lord¿s Prayer and Apostle¿s Creed. The Perpendicular font has an octagonal bowl with sunk quatrefoils on 4 facets, on a round pedestal and octagonal base. It is lead-lined and retains one of its original staples. The polygonal C17 pulpit incorporates tiers of enriched round-arch and fluted panels. Pews in the nave have plain ends with carved poppy heads. The gallery has low backless benches. A painted Royal Arms of George IV (1820-30) is above the chancel arch. The principal memorial of interest is a neo-classical marble wall tablet to Rowland Hill (d 1780), by Truman of Bewdley, on the south wall of the chancel. Simpler marble tablets commemorate Rev William Moore (d 1848, who built the church) in the east wall of the nave, and a 1914-18 war memorial on the nave north wall. A brass plaque on the nave south wall, with red and black lettering, commemorates Helen Brooke (d 1897).
History: Built 1840-41 by Josiah Griffiths of Quatford, replacing a medieval church that is said to have been timber-framed with thatch roof. It was built mostly at the expense of the incumbent, the Rev William Moore. Some furnishings were salvaged from the old church and installed in the new, including the font, pulpit, screen fragments, Royal Arms and a wall monument.
Sources:
Newman, J and Pevsner, N., The Buildings of England: Shropshire (2006), 618-19.
Leonard, J., Churches of Shropshire and their Treasures (2004), 244.
Reasons for Designation:
The church of SS Peter and Paul, Tasley, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* An economical and characteristic example of the simple Gothic style favoured in Anglican churches before the ecclesiological revival of the mid C19.
* Contains fittings of special interest from the C15 to the C19, some retained from an earlier church, including font, pulpit and wall monument.
