Church of St Paul, Withnell, including boundary walls, gates and railings, and hearse house

Summary

A parish church of 1841 by R Towers, of Lonkey sandstone.

History

The church of St Paul in Withnell was built in 1841, with raked galleries on three sides of the interior, and is a relatively late example of a ‘preaching box’ style of church more typical of the Georgian period. The 1849 1:10,560 Ordnance Survey (OS) map, surveyed between 1845 and 1847, shows that the graveyard was initially quite small, extending only as far east as the hearse house, and the same distance to the south of the church as to the north (around 16m) – that is, as far as the current south entrance with its circular gateposts. The graveyard was extended to the south by the 1890s, however, with a new stone boundary wall. A boiler house was also added to the north-east corner of the church in the same period.

Map evidence indicates that the western extensions flanking the tower were not added until after 1930. The galleries were removed and a narthex and deep mezzanine added in 1972, and this is probably also when the ceiling was underdrawn with its modern coverings, and the windows replaced (and possibly when the western porch was added). A modern chimney has also been added to the boiler house.

Details

A parish church of 1841 by the surveyor R Towers.

MATERIALS: local grey-pink Lonkey sandstone, welsh slate roof, replacement timber windows.

PLAN: a nave without chancel or aisles, aligned west-east, with a west tower.

EXTERIOR: the east wall is plain, and flanked by unstaged, weathered buttresses. The walling is regularly coursed, with a projecting plinth of two undressed courses and a pecked course, the rest of the stone largely being pecked, with some horizontal tooling. Windows with arched stone heads flank an oculus below the gable, which is coped and has a ball-cross finial. The lower right wall is obscured by a red brick lean-to boiler house, with a modern sandstone chimney against the buttress.

The north and south facades are of similar walling, divided into five bays by buttresses, with tall arched windows and replacement box gutters. The north wall has a modern fire escape from the gallery down across the bay to the east.

The west end has a central square tower, with a second, broached, octagonal stage above the gable, with a cornice to a concave octagonal stone spire with a pointed ball finial. The tower has a trio of arched west windows to the gallery, and blind (or blocked) windows to the flanks, with belfry louvres to the upper stage. The tower is flanked by lean-to vestry-porches in matching stone, with gutter corbels, front windows and side entrances. The modern ‘sentry box’ porch on the west front of the tower is in similar but yellower sandstone, with stepped side walls and an arched doorway.

INTERIOR: this is divided with a two-bay mezzanine and single-bay narthex at the west end, both with largely blind east walls. The shallow-vaulted ceiling is underdrawn in modern boarding. The raised chancel area stands against the east wall with an arcaded altar rail. The oculus window above is leaded with yellow and green margin lights and a central quatrefoil of stained glass with IHS christogram. Below this is a reredos comprising an arched recess with a nail-head hoodmould, the head of the recess having a pendant arch with carved capitals, and below this an arcade of a tall arch flanked by shorter ones, all with Tuscan capitals to half-pilasters. The altar table has fluted pilasters to its front. A carved late-Gothic wooden pulpit with curved steps (possibly one of the original pair or pulpits) remains, as does an unfixed lectern.

The nave walls have three marble memorials, two to the first two incumbents (1841 to 1883 and 1883 to 1918), and one to a local victim of cholera who is buried in Shanghai. The fixed pews are thought to be original, some reorientated. One window in the north wall is by Hardman, and dated 1946. Over the entrance to the narthex is a wooden First World War memorial plaque, with names flanking a central frame surrounding a photograph of Pte James Miller VC. The octagonal stone font stands in the east end and has a quatrefoil frieze.

The interiors of the narthex and mezzanine retain some original fabric but no features of note.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: in the north-east corner of the graveyard is a hearse house in coursed rubble with quoins and a surround to the (blocked) tall northern entrance arch, and paired southern doorways with quoined jambs (one blocked for a window). Windows have been inserted in the west wall, and a doorway in the east wall (now blocked).

The northern boundary comprises a stone wall with hogsback coping, and the western boundary a low wall with original railings and gates. The north-west gateway has rectangular gateposts with added concrete caps, and the south-western gateway has cylindrical gateposts with concave conical stone caps. A kissing gate to the south is later, and the southern extension to the graveyard has a low coursed-stone western boundary wall, which is lowered in the centre to display a war memorial to Pte James Miller VC, comprising a white granite wheelhead cross.

End of official list entry

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