page_title: Brewood
section_title: The medieval parish church
hierarchical_section_title: Brewood / Churches / The medieval parish church
caption_attribution_description: English: Roman Catholic church of St Mary, Brewood, Staffordshire, England by A. W. N. Pugin. listed. Photographed by me, 10 August 2006. Oosoom
context_page_description: Brewood is an ancient market town and civil parish in South Staffordshire, England. Located around grid reference SJ883088, Brewood lies near the River Penk, eight miles north of Wolverhampton city centre and eleven miles south of the county town of Stafford. Some three miles to the west of Brewood is the border with the county of Shropshire.
context_section_description: The Anglican parish church of Brewood is Saint Mary the Virgin and Saint Chad. It shares its dedication with Lichfield Cathedral, probably because the bishop was lord of the manor of Brewood. Veneration of The Virgin Mary was very important in the Middle Ages and many major churches contemporary with Brewood's parish church have this dedication, including Lincoln Cathedral and Notre Dame de Paris. St. Chad was the 7th century Northumbrian missionary most closely associated with the establishment of Mercian Christianity, and there are many medieval dedications to him in the West Midlands, including important churches at nearby Stafford, Pattingham and Shrewsbury.
  The present building was begun in sandstone in the early 13th century, in Early English style, probably on the site of an earlier church, perhaps a wooden Mercian structure. The aisles are wide, making the nave, which has five bays, very square in appearance. The present plan is probably very similar to the original 13th-century lay-out. The chancel is the part of the church that is structurally most similar to when it was first built. However, the remainder of the church has been altered so often and so substantially that it is impossible to be sure of its exact architectural history. Major changes took place in the 14th and 16th centuries, with the height of the nave being raised greatly, necessitating large alterations to the aisles. This greatly altered the cross-section of the building, with lean-to roofs on the aisles replacing the original gabled design.
  The Georgian period saw the most radical and least sympathetic alterations. At some point in the 18th century, the east wall of the chancel was rebuilt in brick, with Venetian windows installed. In the 1770s, amid great controversy in the parish vestry, major structural changes were forced through. First the roof was completely stripped off and a new one fitted, a single pitch construction which covered both the nave and its aisles, and which greatly reduced the height of the building. Then the north and south doors were stopped up, their porches demolished, and the west door adopted as the entrance. In 1815 the galleries were altered to take a new organ, and from 1827 to 1830, nearly all the old furnishings and fittings were ripped out and replaced, along with the font.
  Despite these changes the Victorian period saw more radical work, this time in the cause of restoration. At a cost of £6600, the architect and restorer George Edmund Street directed a major operation between 1878 and 1880. The vandalised east wall of the chancel was rebuilt in stone, the roof returned to approximately its former height, with the pitched roof of the nave separated from those of the aisles, and the north vestry demolished. Street made a serious attempt to respect the 13th century plan of the building, although its cross section is now close to the 16th-century reconstruction. In many cases, he used the old stone in the restoration. Some new furnishings were bought around the same time, including a pulpit and choir stalls. However, even Street's restoration was not the end of the story. The tower was restored in 1890: the noted tower and spire have a peal of eight bells. In the early years of the 20th century much was done to make the church more usable and accessible. A screen used to provide a temporary vestry at the eastern end was removed and a reredos installed, placing the main altar in its proper place. Floors levels were changed and railings removed from the Giffard tomb, and the old font was recovered from a garden in Coven and reinstalled. The church has been a grade I listed building since 1962.
  The church has eight bells, made in 1896 by Taylors of Loughborough. The funding of £1,000 for this "new" ring of bells was provided by a bequest from Charles Docker of Dean Street, Brewood. The bells are one of the first sets of bells to be tuned using the Scientific or "Simpson" tuning method which was developed through the late 1890s by Taylors. At a tenor weight of 21 CWT, they are considered one of the finest peals of 
caption: St Mary's Roman Catholic church.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "NIKON", "Image Model": "S1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "S1v1.0", "Image DateTime": "2006:08:10 11:49:11", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "284", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4596", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9069", "EXIF ExposureTime": "10/447", "EXIF FNumber": "17/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:08:10 11:49:11", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:08:10 11:49:11", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "16/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "29/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2592", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1944", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1026", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "35", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Landscape", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}