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| Seighford Hall | St. Chad's, Seighford | |
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| The Nave and Chancel Arch | The Font | |
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| Hatchment | North Arcade looking east | |
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| Effigies of Sir William Boyer and his wife | Effigies of some of the children of Sir William Boyer | |
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| Painting on North Wall | War Memorial in the entrance beneath the tower |
Seighford Hall has a late 15th century core with three gables but has large additions from the Victorian period. St. Chad's in the village half a mile to the SE of the hall has many interesting features. In 2021, a newspaper article indicated that that the hall had been derlict for some years and that there were plans to convert it to a hotel. Meanwhile there was a dispute about an Elizabethan overmantle that had been removed from the hall and was about to be auctioned.
At first glance it looks Georgian because of the brick built tower and south wall with a small amount of stonework in the south wall of the chancel. However, the masonry on the north side is all stone. Entrance is through a door at the west end of the tower into a chamber with the war memorial shown above. Through the double doors at the east side one enters the nave to be confronted by a magnificent Norman chancel arch and north arcade.
The history of the building is very complicated and I give a very brief account gleaned in part from a framed illustration in the church drawn by Andrew King in July 2003. The original church, built in 1155 is believed to have had a nave with two aisles, a crossing tower and a chancel (the same width as the nave) with an apse. (Pevsner states that the waterleaf capital of one of the columns indicates that it could not be made before 1170.) The chancel may have been built on top of a 10th century church. About 1225 the apse was removed and the chancel extended to the east. In 1275 the chancel was given an narrow north aisle. In 1325 the north aisle of the nave was widened and in 1425 it was widened to make its north wall in line with that of the nave. The crossing tower collapsed and was originally rebuilt in brick in 1610 but in 1748 there was major rebuilding. The tower was moved to the west end, the nave was rebuilt with the loss of the south arcade and aisle. This left a church with a nave and chancel of about the same width and a long north aisle running the length of both nave and chancel. The pulpit and communion rail are Jacobean.
The most prominent memorial is the alabaster tomb of William Boyer and his wife of 1593. Around the side of the chest are effigies of their children including one in swaddling clothes who must have died as an infant. There are faint wall paintings on the north wall of the north aisle and the picture I show has been digitally enhanced to produce more colour contrast.
The Buildings of England, Staffordshire, by Nikolaus Pevsner, Penguin, 1974, ISBN 0 14 071046 9
1.0 Strict 