The follwing extracts are from Churches of the Black Country by Tim Bridges published by Logaston Press ISBN 9871906663049 and are reproduced with his permission, for which we thank him.
BRIERLEY HILL ST.MICHAEL,
The name Brierley Hill aptly describes the setting of this town high up on the ridge to the south of Dudley with views towards Shropshire to the west, while 'Brierley' refers to the brambles on what was a wild area of common land. This part of the Dudley estates developed from the seventeenth century as a squatter
settlement of ironworkers, and more extensively in the nineteenth century following the creation of the turnpike road, then the canals, and the opening of the railway. Major industries included the production of glassware at the famous Royal Brierley Crystal, (the buildings of which are being converted to residential use in
North Street), along with butchery, bacon and pies at Marsh and Baxter, the site of which is now occupied by the shopping centre. The recent large development of Merry Hill just to the east of the town on the site of the vast Round Oak steelworks led to the decline of the town centre, along with others in this part of the
Black Country. However, there is a good survival rate of Victorian buildings in and around the High Street, and the conservation and sensitive development of these is being actively encouraged.
St. Michael stands on the crest of the hill to the west of the town centre. Its dominant position was challenged by the construction of a group of tower blocks in the 1960s on the opposite side of
Church Street. However, the large red brick church still has a powerful presence standing alone in a large graveyard. A separate parish of Brierley Hill was created in 1865, but the church had been consecrated in 1765 as a chapel of ease in the parish of Kingswinford. The building could seat two hundred and fifty people and had a plain Georgian nave with a west gallery, short chancel and west tower, which survive as the core of the present building. By 1823 the side transepts had been added, and then in 1837 it was further extended to the east to provide a larger chancel. The base of the tower was altered to form a porch in 1885 as a memorial to Walter Marsh of Marsh and Baxter, and the tower recased and much rebuilt to its present form in 1900. The tower is substantial with Classical details to the openings and surmounted by a parapet with large pinnacles. The resultant building is massive and almost square in plan as a result of the various extensions. It has large pediments with dentil decoration to the side transepts. The windows on two tiers to the sides of the church are rectangular, almost domestic in appearance, whilst those to the tower and east end are round headed.
The interior is a delightful surprise. Whitewashed walls with Classical columns and galleries give the impression of a colonial or American Georgian church. Many changes were made to the Georgian interior in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These include the recent reordering in which some of the spaces under the galleries in the side aisle have been screened off with glass partitions. However, the overall effect is one of sympathetic and cumulative development. The box pews survived until 1900. Some of the earlier flooring and panelling on the south side were moved from the north aisle in 1935. The font is of 1900, and the lectern was given by the Marsh family in the same year. In 1994 the pulpit was moved and reduced in height. It was originally a three decker. The reredos and communion rails were installed in 1934. The organ of 1954 was destroyed in an arson attack in 2001. The bells were recast in 1899.
There is some fine stained glass. The east window shows the Crucifixion, Good Samaritan and Prodigal Son, whilst the coats of arms below show the elephant and castle as well as a raven. The window is a memorial to John and Hannah Corbett who are buried in the churchyard. They were the parents of John Corbett, the Droitwich salt magnate and philanthropist, whose emblem, a raven, is commemorated in the Raven Hotel in that town. The Stone memorial window at the west end shows the Light of the World, whilst the Good Shepherd window is a memorial to Sarah Stone, wife of rector Josiah Stone. The Resurrection window at the east end of the south side is a memorial to the Weaver family. The window depicting 'Suffer little children' is a memorial to mining charter master John Gordon of 1913, whilst that in the middle on the south side is a memorial to those killed in the First World War. Some of this glass was moved to the south side from the north during the 1994 alterations.
There are many memorial tablets in the church, of which the earliest is in the chancel. It commemorates John Pidcock who died in 1791, and his wife Mary who is described as the heiress to Robert Honeybourne, a glassmaker. The incumbents of this church in the eighteenth century included a minor poet called Thomas Moss.
The font in the churchyard is from the former mission church at Delph. Nearby are several grave memorials of people connected with the glass industry here, such as the Stevens family on the south side. A memorial now lost recorded the hazards of industry in the nineteenth century; Cornelius and David Turner, John Thompson and Thomas Dimmock were all killed in a mining accident in 1815. Next to the gateway of 1765 on the south side is a memorial to the 'Brierley Hill Giant', George Lovett, who died in 1932 weighing forty-eight stone.
BROCKMOOR ST.JOHN
This mixed residential and industrial area grew up on the high ground to the north-west of Brierley Hill in the nineteenth century. The locks and pools of Cockley Wharf form a pretty interlude to the buildings on
Leys Roadto the west of the church. The story of Brockmoor is closely interwoven with the industrial development of Brierley Hill, and it was the birthplace in 1863 of glassmaker Frederick Carder, who emigrated to found the Steuben glassworks in
New York.
St. John is a Commissioners' type church built to designs by Thomas Smith in 1844-5. It is of purple brick with yellow brick dressings, and is in an unusual neo-Norman style with carved decoration and long round-headed windows. The wide nave has a bellcote above the doorway at the west end. There are north and south transepts and a short chancel with triple lights to the east window, stepped in the manner of the Early English style. The spacious interior was much reordered in the late 1990s. However, there is an octagonal Victorian font resting on marble shafts with carved foliage capitals, and good late nineteenth-century stained glass in the east windows.
The church stands in the midst of a very large Black Country type churchyard with numerous memorials of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The main entrance is through a lychgate in the same neo-Norman style as the church.
HAWBUSH ST.PAUL
Hawbush is an area of housing estates between Brierley Hill and Wordsley. St. Paul's church was erected in 1954 as a mission church from Holy Trinity, Wordsley and is a typical brick building of its date. Recently] refurbished, it combines church and hall use in the same building.
QUARRYBANK CHRIST CHURCH
To the south-east of Brierley Hill in what was a remote part of Kingswinford parish until the nineteenth century, Quarry Bank grew up as a centre of nail- and chainmaking. The long High Street runs east from the main Dudley Road at Merry Hill, where the shopping centre has all but engulfed the town. To the south a pleasant park was set out by Stourbridge philanthropist Ernest Stevens in the early twentieth century.
Christ Church, by the junction of High Street and Park Road, is a striking building which comprises a nave, transepts and chancel with a bellcote at the west end. It is built of yellow fireclay bricks, in a similar manner to Holy Trinity, Amblecote. The litect was Thomas Smith of Stourbridge, who also designed the nee-Norman St. John, Brockmoor, but 5 he used the Commissioners' type Early English style with lancet windows. The chancel was extended 11900. The hammerbeam roof is an unusual feature of the interior and there is some good modern glass.
Quarry Bank from the south-west
© Tim Bridges