For this church:

Introduction

Location

History

Archaeology

Fittings

Glass

Organ

Bells

Clock

Stonework

Monuments

War Memorial

Churchyard

References

Pictures

Plans

List of Incumbents

Basford
St Augustine

Archaeology

Significant Features and Architectural History

The original building of 1859 was very small, only 75 feet (23 M) long. It consisted of nave, chancel (with vestry) and bell turret. When Ewan Christian surveyed it in 1870 he found the walls were 14 ins (355 mm). thick in the chancel, but all other enclosing walls were only 9 inch (229 mm) brick with small lateral buttresses ‘finished with very meagre stone dressings already in course of decay.’ (PR 24,365/1). The stone was from Bulwell but the floor was made of Staffordshire bricks. The chancel was ‘one step up from the nave and divided from it by a very richly carved wood screen and fixed in an arcade of three arches also richly carved’. (White’s Directory 1864).

In 1877 the new church was built. This involved excavating the foundations, laying concrete and building a new nave on the north side after taking down the north wall of the existing church. The original building then became the south aisle of the new church. The roof and approaches between the old and new nave then had to be made good. In the Terrier of 1887 the new church was said to be ‘a stone edifice lined with brick. The chancel is not yet built nor is the south aisle’. However, a north aisle had been added in 1884 when the temporary brick wall on the north arcade of the nave was removed. The chancel was built in 1895 when the east wall was partly removed and a doorway inserted at the west end of the north aisle. A choir vestry, designed by A.R. Calvert, was added to the north west in 1908 rather than the south, in order to retain the little chapel so dear to many worshippers. (It was made safe and retained to the end). James Marsh, the verger from 1889 to 1917, was also a stone-mason and his knowledge was of great value when the chancel and choir vestry were built.

Large cracks appeared in the 1930s, thought to be due to a mine shaft collapse underneath the church. This would be the old Newcastle Colliery then owned by Babbington Colliery Company. The font mysteriously crashed to the ground in January 1937, a serious blow following the bill for £1000 for repairs in 1936.

Technical Summary

Timbers and roofs

Bellframe

Single stone bellcote in open turret above south porch, probably dating from 1859 with later modifications, especially in 1896 when Taylor’s bell foundry of Loughborough forwarded a second-hand bell (Dawson 1994).

Destroyed (1989).

Walls

Excavations and potential for survival of below-ground archaeology

No archaeological excavation work recorded.

The original church was constructed from new in 1859. The use of the site prior to construction has not been researched sufficiently to allow an assessment of pre-church archaeological potential. The building has now been demolished.

The overall potential for the survival of below-ground archaeology in the churchyard is considered unknown and below the former interior floors is considered to be unknown.

Exterior:Unknown

Interior:Unknown