St Barnabas

The present St Barnabas dates from 1656 and is one of only six churches to be built or rebuilt in the Commonwealth Period after the English Civil War.

It was used by the Royalists during the English Civil War as a canon emplacement during the siege of the Castle. Following the surrender of the castle the church was destroyed.

The architecture of the building reflects the strong influence that the Puritans held in this area, and is strikingly different from the standard parish church. Commissioned by Sir Robert Harley, it was originally a straightforward Puritan preaching box, covered with a remarkable triple hammerbeam roof structure, which tradition suggests was retrieved from the adjacent castle banqueting hall.

Alterations were done in the early 1830s to increase free seating. The box pews reorganised and a west gallery inserted, with access from a small tower on the west wall. This provided a new entrance to the church, and the existing door in the south wall was closed. A small Priest’s Vestry was built at the northeast corner. The work was designed by Edward Blakeway Smith of Ludlow, who returned in 1857 to add a belfry with memorial clock at the southwest corner and install a Decorated east window.

Further reordering came in 1887/8, under the direction of JS Crowther (architect at Manchester Cathedral). The south west door was reinstated with a porch added, the gallery removed, and all pews replaced and a new pulpit with much fine intarsia woodwork by the then Rector, F Sheffield, added. The original Jacobean nave windows were replaced in Decorated Perpendicular style, the nave floor renewed and the building re-roofed, and a new east window (by Powell & Sons), with the 1857 one moved to the west wall. The entrance to the north (Priests) Vestry was reconfigured and the Victorian font, moved northwards along the west wall.

In 1907 a choir vestry was added at the west end, obliterating evidence of the previous external structures, dedicated at the same time as a new organ (by Bishop & Son). 

In the south wall of the nave is what is believed to be the tomb of Margaret de Brampton (died c1350). The southeast wall has the memorial to the first Earl of Oxford and Mortimer (died 1724) who was Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord High Treasurer (Prime Minister) under Queen Anne. What is thought to be the 1656 holy table is still within the church.

St Barnabas is situated in the northwest corner of Herefordshire, on the cycle route from Land's End to John 'O Groats and can provide shelter, peace and rest for the weary traveller.