Patrick Comerford
My 10-mile walk through the countryside in south Staffordshire last week, starting at the Moat House in Tamworth, brought me to Wigginton and Saint Leonard’s Church, along Comberford Lane and Wigginton Lane to Comberford and the banks of the River Tame, and then along Coton Lane to Hopwas.
Before returning to Tamworth, I stopped to see Hopwas and Hopwas Hayes Wood, climbed up the hill to Saint Chad’s Church, walked along the canal towpaths beside the Tame Otter and the Red Lion, and had a late lunch in the Tame Otter.
Saint Chad’s Church, tucked under the woods, was built in 1879-1881 to replace the earlier Saint John’s Chapel, built as a chapel-of-ease for Tamworth parish in 1836. Saint John’s churchyard can still be seen on the right-hand or west side of Hints Lane, walking up from the Tame Otter, just beyond Hopwas Methodist Church.
The Revd William MacGregor (1848-1937) who was, without doubt, Tamworth’s ultimate ‘champion of the poor’ and the very embodiment of the Victorian ‘slum priest’. He was a curate in Hopwas, outside Tamworth, in 1872-1876, and then Vicar of Saint Matthias’, Liverpool, in 1877-1878. But he returned to Tamworth and the Diocese of Lichfield when he was appointed Vicar of Tamworth in 1878 at the age of 30.
When he was the Vicar of Tamworth (1878-1887), MacGregor gave Saint Editha’s Church a major facelift, had its bells recast, and built two churches, at Glascote and at Hopwas. Saint John’s was too small to cater for the growing population of Hopwas, but when he sought land to build a new church, he was opposed by Sir Robert Peel who argued that the population was not large enough. However, the Revd TK Levett of Packington Hall gave an acre of land as a site for a new church in 1878, and Herbert Dean later gave additional land to ensure the church had an open setting.
The foundation stone was laid in 1879 and Saint Chad’s was consecrated on 23 April 1881 by William Dalrymple Maclagan (1826-1910), Bishop of Lichfield (1878-1891) and later Archbishop of York (1891-1908).
This brick and timber-framed ‘chocolate-box’, Arts and Crafts church on Hopwas Hill is in the shadow of Hopwas Hayes Wood. It has been praised by the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘an ingenious and entertaining building’. It was designed by the architect John Douglas (1830-1911) of Chester and is now a Grade II listed building.
The architect John Douglas (1830-1911) of Chester also designed many of the interior fittings, including the choir stalls, pulpit, pews and sanctuary rail. As an architect, Douglas designed over 500 buildings in Cheshire, North Wales, and north-west England, particularly on the Eaton Hall estate.
Douglas designed 500 or more buildings, built at least 40 new churches or chapels, restored, altered or renovated many more churches, and designed fittings and furniture for the interiors of his churches. His other works include houses, farms, shops, banks, offices, hotels, a hospital, drinking fountains, clocks, schools, public baths, a library, a bridge, an obelisk, cheese factories, and public conveniences. Most of his work was in Cheshire and North Wales, although there are some in Lancashire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Scotland.
His architectural styles were eclectic. He worked during the period of the Gothic Revival, and much of his works incorporates elements of the English Gothic style. The firm where he trained was at the forefront of the Gothic Revival and both Edmund Sharpe and EG Paley were influenced by the Cambridge Camden Society and by AWN Pugin. Douglas’s first church, Saint John the Evangelist at Over, Winsford, was entirely English Gothic in style.
He was also influenced by European architectural styles and he included French, German and Dutch elements. However, he is probably best remembered for incorporating vernacular elements in his buildings, in particular half-timbering, influenced by the black-and-white revival in Chester. One of his characteristic features is his inclusion of dormer windows rising through the eaves and surmounted by hipped roofs. Other elements include tile-hanging, pargeting and the use of decorative brick in diapering and the design of tall chimney stacks, and his use of joinery and highly detailed wood carving.
Douglas attracted commissions from wealthy landowners and industrialists, especially the Grosvenor family of Eaton Hall. Most of his works have survived, particularly his churches. Chester has a number of his structures, the most admired of which are his half-timbered black-and-white buildings and the Eastgate Clock. The highest concentration of his work is found in the Eaton Hall estate and the surrounding villages of Eccleston, Aldford and Pulford.
John Douglas was born in Sandiway, Cheshire, on 11 April 1830, the second of four children and the only son of John Douglas, a builder, joiner, surveyor and timber merchant from Northampton, and his wife Mary (née Swindley) from Aldford on the Eaton estate in Cheshire. John Douglas senior was a builder and joiner, and also described himself as an architect, surveyor and a timber merchant.
He gained experience in his father’s building yard and workshop before being articled in the 1840s to EG Paley of Sharpe and Paley, architects in Lancaster. He was Paley’s chief assistant until he established his own office at No 6 Abbey Square, Chester, in 1855-1860.
Douglas married Elizabeth Edmunds from Bangor-is-y-Coed, Flintshire, in 1860 in Saint Dunawd’s Church, the village church he later restored, and they were the parents of five children.
He designed four churches and chapels, eight parsonages and large houses for the Duke of Westminster, as well as 15 schools, around 50 farms, about 300 cottages, lodges and smithies, two factories, two inns and about 12 commercial buildings on the Eaton Hall estate, as well as a church and buildings on the Halkyn estate in Flintshire. He also had commissions from the Earl of Sefton, the Earl of Ellesmere, the Marquess of Cholmondeley, Lord Kenyon, and the Gladstone family, including WE Gladstone, and from soap makers such as the Johnsons and WH Lever, the creator of Port Sunlight.
By the time Douglas moved to Chester, the black-and-white revival using half-timbering was well under way, and Douglas came to incorporate this style in his buildings in Chester and elsewhere. Part of his earliest work for the Grosvenor family, the entrance lodge to Grosvenor Park, used half-timbering in its upper storey, the first known use by Douglas of black-and-white.
One of Douglas's most important secular buildings is St Deiniol’s Library, at Hawarden, Flintshire, designed for WE Gladstone and his family. His work in the centre of Chester includes 38 Bridge Street (1897), a timber-framed shop that incorporates a section of Chester Rows and has heavily decorated carving. The architectural historian Edward Hubbard says that ‘in this work, the city’s half-timber revival reached its very apogee’.
Douglas died on 23 May 1911 at Walmoor Hill, the large house he built for himself at Dee Banks, and he was buried at Overleigh Old Cemetery, Chester. Pevsner describes him as ‘the best Cheshire architect’.
A notice in the church porch reads:
Enter this door
as if the floor within were gold
and every wall of jewels,
all of wealth untold,
as if a choir
in robes were signing here.
Nor shout – nor rush
but hush for
God is here.
Saint Chad’s Church, which Douglas designed in Hopwas, was built by J Deakins. Pevsner says that in its design it is ‘certainly an ingenious and entertaining building’. All the timber is oak. The exterior design resembles a chalet, well suited to the woodland background. The lower walls are reddish pink brick and at the chancel continue up to form a low saddle backed tower topped with an octagonal turret of oak shingles surmounted with a wrought iron cross and weather vane.
Saint Chad’s is built in red brick with timber framing in its upper parts, and has a roof of plain tiles. The church is crowned by an octagonal flèche. Its plan consists of a five-bay nave and a single-bay chancel between which is the flèche, with a vestry to the south and an annex with the organ to the north.
The interior consists mainly of buff coloured brick and dark oak. The chancel has a five-light east window with Perpendicular tracery and a square head. The East window by Heaton, Butler & Bayne (1890) depicts the Crucifixion in the centre with the Nativity and Baptism of Christ to the left, and the women at the empty tomb and the road to Emmaus to the right.
The fittings include an octagonal stone font, a carved oak pulpit with stone base and steps, open cusped arches, a wooden altar rail with traceried panels, an oak lectern and oak pews with poppyheads.
The original organ appears to have been pneumatically controlled with the manual on the south side and the pipes installed on the north side. Small pipes were laid in a duct under the floor enabling the keys being pressed to direct wind to the pipes. A small archway in the west side of the organ chamber may have been the access point for the ‘bellows boy’ to provide wind for the organ.
The present organ manual is sunk down 2 ft in front of the priest’s stall with the music coming from the pipes on the north wall behind the choir stalls. The organ was built by the organ builders Hill, Norman & Beard in 1940. It was installed by Herbert Dean in memory of his first wife Esther and was dedicated on 20 May 1940. The organ is being restored after an infestation of wood worm, with the entire organ stripped down, restored and rebuilt.
The war memorial in the churchyard is at the east end of the church. The Celtic cross in Peterhead granite is 3.7 m (12 ft) high with interlace carving, carved wreaths and the names of people who died in World War I and World War II.
As for the Revd William MacGregor, the priest who initiated the building Saint of Chad’s, his initiative in starting the Co-op in Tamworth enraged many business owners in Tamworth. He was abused in the street, damned in letters sent to him, to the Tamworth Herald and to the bishop, and some parishioners stopped going to church in protest.
He resigned as Vicar of Tamworth in 1887 but continued to live in Tamworth, faithful to his beliefs and morals, held in esteem by ordinary working men and women. He sat on Warwickshire County Council (1888-1917) and was chair of the Tamworth Herald (1906-1928). He was 89 when he died on 26 February 1937 at Bolehall Manor; it seems fitting that he was buried at Saint Chad’s Church, Hopwas.
A poster on the noticeboard says:
In happy moments, praise God.
In difficult moments, seek God.
In quiet moments, trust God.
In every moment, thank God.
• Saint Chad’s Church, Hopwas, is part of a benefice that includes Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, Saint Francis, Leyfields, and Saint Andrew’s, Kettlebrook, and the Revd Andrew Lythall is the vicar. The Eucharist is celebrated most Sundays at 10:30 am, but occasionally this is replaced with ‘Prayer & Praise’. On a fifth Sunday in the month, a joint service alternates between Saint Chad’s Church and Hopwas Methodist Church.
2 comments:
This is a fantastic discourse on St Chads Church. You’ve clearly done your historical studies of our beautiful church. Thank you for publishing this. I’d love to put a link to it from our website if that is permitted. Keith Dawson - churchwarden, St Chads, Hopwas.
Of course Keith, please do, thank you for asking. I had a delightful visit, and was very charmed
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