Churches which still retain west gallery
features or connections |
*Alstonefield, St Peter |
Outer walls of attractive chequered
sandstone and limestone. Norman, Decorated and Perpendicular inside. Excellent
box-pews, including Charles Cotton's more richly done, and a two-decker pulpit.
(CEPC) West gallery ca. 1635 ? #
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Baswich, Holy Trinity |
Church built 1739 for £336. A
small brick church with mediaeval stone tower, Norman
chancel arch, nave and chancel rebuilt by Richard Trubshaw
in 1739-40 in red brick for £336. Georgian west gallery, three-decker pulpit, and
the Levett and Chetwynd family pews just beyond the mediaeval chancel arch, one
raised on spindly columns, and the other on stout Doric ones.
(CEPC).
Tomb chest (1587) with shields and 4 tapering
square balusters.
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Betley, St Margaret
|
Tower dates from 1693, the church
having a timber-framed clerestory and porches. Inside are timber columns,
arcades and trusses in the nave; good roof and parclose screen, 18th C. gallery
and box-pews. |
Bilston, St Leonard |
Classical church built 1826. Greek
interior with galleries (Ewan Christian, 1883). |
Brierly Hill, St Michael |
Classical built church dating from
1765. No details of interior . .
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Great Haywood, St John the
Baptist (RC)
|
Built 1828 at Tixall
and moved here 1845 by the local congregation. Ornate west
front with high octagonal south west turret. Straight
headed, late perpendicular windows, with stone panelled dado
underneath inside. Rich west gallery.
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Hilderstone, Christ Church
|
Built 1827-9 by Thomas Trubshaw. Commissioners'
type church with north west steeple with recessed spire.
Inside, octagonal piers with leaf capitals. Lancet
windows. Box-pews. |
*Leek, St Edward the Confessor
|
"14th C. church. Huge gallery like
an escalator". (CEPC)
"Enormous west
gallery, which rises tier upon tier.." Balustraded front.
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*Rushton Spencer, St Laurence
|
A church of rare individuality and
interest.: gritstone and stone aisle slate, mostly 17th and 19th C. outside,
with a weatherboarded bell turret and high gabled dormers. Inside, the original
timber-built nave (?1203), spanned by low beams with a text in good Georgian
lettering; hefty posts and struts like low, spreading trees; king posts and
Gothic arched ceiling and a Georgian minstrel's gallery; Jacobean pulpit and
Squire's pew, hatchments above, big Tables of the Law, and oil lamps.
Everything friendly and domestic, clearly the House of God.(CEPC)
The date 1719 is carved on bench in the
gallery. The west gallery is balustraded, with an internal stair. #
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Sandon, All Saints
|
Mainly 13th to 15th C. Ornate north aisle
remodelled 1851 as chapel for the Earls of Harrowby. The interior is dominated by the
screen supporting the elevated family pew (1782) of the Harrowbys: this and the 17th C. pulpit
with tester are both good.
The family pew
screen is the remodelled chancel screen.
Large monument to Sampson Erdeswick, the
antiquary (d.1603). Painted family tree 16th C. 17th C reredos, as also the heraldic glass in
east window. |
Smethwick, Old Church |
Georgian chapel of ease to Harborne
Church. No further details . . ? |
Stone, St Michael
|
Early example of Gothic Revival style, built 1758
in grounds of earlier Augustinian Priory. Square west tower.
2 tier of windows with Y tracery along nave. 2 galleries.
Original box pews. Two 17th C. tombs of Crompton family in
churchyard. Classical style Mausoleum of Earl St. Vincent,
Nelson's admiral, to east of church.
|
Wolverhampton, Collegiate Church of St
Peter |
15th C. central tower, otherwise
mostly ca. 1480, but with Victorian chancel. The west gallery dates from 1610.
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Wolverhampton, St John |
William Baker, 1755. Tower and
octagonal spire. The interior is Doric with galleries. Renatus Harris organ
originally from the temple Church, London. |
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Churches which are known to have had west
gallery features or connections |
Clifton Campville, St Andrew |
An 1830 report noted west gallery
for singers. A further report in 1837 ordered that "the gallery be lowered or
its position changed, so as not to intercept the window". Restorations 1866 and
1910/11.
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Chapels, etc., with west
gallery features or connections
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Stafford,
Society of Friends, Foregate Street |
Built
1730, small single room brick building with original
panelling, gallery, staircase and overseers' bench. Hiding
place in roof from days of persecution.
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Asterisks denote
churches in preparation
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