St Chad's Church, on Greengate Street in the centre of

Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It lies about north of Wolverhampton, south of Stoke-on-Trent and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 70,145 in t ...

, is a

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

church. Saint Chad, who died in 672, was the first Bishop of Lichfield. The church was built in the 12th century, and is the oldest building in Stafford. The church was neglected in the 17th and 18th centuries, and much of the Norman architecture was obscured; there was much restoration work in the mid 19th century, particularly by

George Gilbert Scott Sir George Gilbert Scott (13 July 1811 – 27 March 1878), known as Sir Gilbert Scott, was a prolific English Gothic Revival architect, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches and cathedrals, although he started ...

The original building

The building is cruciform and has a crossing tower.St Chad, Stafford
The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, accessed 12 August 2014. There is an inscription in Latin on the impost at the north-east corner of the crossing: ORM VOCATUR QUI ME CONDIDIT ("He who built me is called Orm"). It is thought that "Orm" is Orm le Guidon, an important landowner in the 11th to 12th century.Famous Ormes
The Orme Web Site, accessed 14 August 2014. The nave is bordered by massive stone

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

s which have

scallop Scallop () is a common name that encompasses various species of marine bivalve mollusks in the taxonomic family Pectinidae, the scallops. However, the common name "scallop" is also sometimes applied to species in other closely related families ...

capitals Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

. The columns support four-

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...

arcades which have chevron decorations on the two eastern arches of each arcade. The crossing arch, at the eastern end of the nave, has chevron decorations, and "beak-heads" on the columns. All these are features of the original Norman building.''St Chad's Church''. Leaflet obtained at the church in 2007. St Chad's church - geograph

There are intersecting arches on either side of the chancel; these are original features uncovered during the 1850s restoration. The two windows in the north wall of the chancel have interiors which are the only original window features in the building.Stafford St Chad
GENUKI, accessed 12 August 2014. The tower was rebuilt in the 14th century; after this the church became neglected. In the 17th century the original aisles were destroyed, the arcades were bricked up, and the transepts were removed.

Restoration

There was some restoration in the 1740s by Richard Trubshaw, after the west end of the nave collapsed. His work included rebuilding the parapets of the tower and building a new west front, of brick. In the 1850s some restoration of the chancel was done by Henry Ward of Stafford. Restoration work was continued in the 1870s by

: he built a new west front of stone, in Romanesque style, and he opened up the south arcade and built a new aisle on this side. After his death in 1878, work was continued by Robert Griffiths of Stafford, using Scott's designs. From 1880 to 1886 he opened up the north arcade and built a new north aisle; he restored the tower, and the north transept. The south transept was built in the 1950s.

Furnishings

The organ was built by J. Kirkland of London in 1888, and extended by J. J. Binns of Leeds in 1909. It was restored in 1995 by Peter Collins of Melton Mowbray. The font, in Norman style, was built in 1856. The altarpiece was created in 1910 by

Sir Walter Tapper Sir Walter John Tapper (21 April 1861 – 21 September 1935) was an English architect known for his work in the Gothic Revival architecture, Gothic Revival style and a number of church buildings. He worked with some leading ecclesiastical archit ...

. The inner porch, the rood-beam and the telescopic cover of the font were designed in the early 20th century by Sir Charles Nicholson, 2nd Baronet.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stafford, St Chads Church Grade II* listed churches in Staffordshire Church of England church buildings in Staffordshire English churches with Norman architecture Diocese of Lichfield St Chads Church Anglo-Catholic church buildings in Staffordshire

The original building

Restoration

Furnishings

See also

References