St. Francis de Sales

Introduction

Saint Francis de Sales in Yoxall was built in 1794, with alterations in the 1830s and late twentieth century.

History

A small Roman Catholic chapel with an attached priest's house was built at Woodlane in 1794. A W N Pugin's diaries record visits to Woodlane in 1841-42 and 'materials for the chapel'. In 1912, the church was overhauled inside and out. Around 1965 the present pews were installed, brought from a Methodist church in Earl Shilton, Leicestershire.

In the late twentieth century the high altar was removed, a forward altar created, the communion rail removed, the sanctuary extended for an organ, and the font repositioned. The church celebrated 225 years of mission in 2019. The pinnacles were also replaced in concrete.

Architecture and furnishings

The church is constructed of red brick with mostly ashlar dressings, and the roofs are plain tiles. The church is cruciform on plan and orientated north-east to south-west, with porch, nave, chancel, transepts, gallery and sacristy. The church has Y-tracery windows, except the east window which is of three lights and with complex cusped tracery. The north-west elevation has a full-height gabled porch with stone coping and kneelers and surmounted by a finial in the form of a cruciform.

The east window glass is by Hardman and Sons c.1983, when the church was reordered. The tiled sanctuary floor dates from 1994, using new Minton tiles surplus to the reflooring of St Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham. The C19 stone octagonal font has shields to each face and a thin octagonal broached stem. There is a wall memorial to Revd Gasper Bricknell, d.1833. At the west end of the nave, on shelves at either end of the gallery balustrade, are two standing angels holding shields with the symbols of the Passion which flanked the high altar until 1971.