St Paul's Church

St Paul’s Church stands on a hilltop west of the A34 Walsall Road in Hamstead, a former mining village now within Birmingham. The site once belonged to Staffordshire before the 1928 boundary change placed it in Warwickshire and later the West Midlands. A mission church opened nearby in 1865, but the present building dates from 1891 when the foundation stone was laid by Augustus Gough-Calthorpe, 6th Baron Calthorpe. William Davis designed the red-brick church with Bathstone dressings, completed in 1892 and described by Pevsner and Wedgwood as a pleasant country church in Decorated style. The church contains a nave, north and south transepts, aisles and a chancel, built by contractors Harley and Son of Smethwick. In 1894 it became the parish church, taking land from St Mary’s Handsworth and St John’s Perry Barr. Beside the churchyard stands the Grade II listed Hamstead War Memorial, a Celtic wheel-cross raised by public subscription in December 1920. It commemorates 22 parish men who died in the First World War. Visitors find a quiet hilltop setting overlooking Hamstead and the surrounding suburbs. The church’s red-brick walls and stone dressings give a warm, solid appearance. Inside, the nave and transepts create a spacious feel, while the chancel focuses attention on the altar. The war memorial’s carved cross stands just outside the gate, its inscriptions listing the fallen. A community hall lies a short distance south along the A34, serving local groups.