St Chad's, Burton upon Trent

St Chad's Church, Burton upon Trent
St Chad's Church, Burton upon Trent
	Liberal Evangelical
Website	http://www.stchadsburton.org.uk/
Administration
Province	Province of Canterbury
Diocese	Diocese of Lichfield
Clergy
Vicar(s)	The Revd Dr George Crossley
Laity
Organist(s)	Steven Blakemore

52°49′03″N 01°38′10″W / 52.81750°N 1.63611°W / 52.81750; -1.63611

St Chad's Church is an

Grade I listed building.^[1]

History

It was a gift to the town by Michael Bass, 1st Baron Burton at a cost of £38,000. The architect was George Frederick Bodley but he died before the church was completed and it was finished by his partner Cecil Greenwood Hare. Work started in 1905 and the church dedication to Saint Chad of Mercia took place in 1910.

The building

The church was designed in the

Decorated style and built of red Hollington stone. The building includes a polygonal vestry and a detached north-west tower linked to the body of the church by a vaulted passage. There is a fine Bodley reredos

in the north chapel.

It has been described by Nikolaus Pevsner as "the finest building by far in Burton-on-Trent" and in the listing text as "one of Bodley's best later works".

Organ

The organ inside the church is a three manual organ built by

Peter Conacher and Co

of Huddersfield (installed by 1909). The organ has 32 stops and consists of a swell, great, choir and pedal organ. The organ has a stop key system and has pure tin pipes which gives it a sweet sound.

Tower

The tower was intended to house a peal of eight bells. The frame was installed circa 1909 along with just one bell. The bell and frame were made by John Taylor & Co of Loughborough; the frame is a two-tier H frame with sub A frames on top. The bell that Taylors cast was the tenor bell which weighed 21-1-8 cwt and was tuned to the note of E. In 1999 Christchurch church at Newchurch near Burton upon Trent became redundant, and the six bells in it were put up for sale; the then vicar of St Chad's, Paul Skillings, put in a successful bid. The bells went back to Taylors for refurbishment and two new trebles were cast to take the peal up to an eight; one bell was donated by local football club Burton Albion F.C. whose ground is in the parish.

The new eight became a 13 cwt ring in the key of G. However, due to this the bell that was already in the tower was incompatible, and it was decided to sell the bell. Finally in 2000 the church had a peal of eight bells after ninety years.