Jackfield Church

The village church at Jackfield can claim to be, architecturally, one of the most distinguished buildings in the Severn gorge. It was designed by the prominent Victorian Architect Sir Arthur William Blomfield (1829-1899) architect of Selwyn College Cambridge, the Royal College of Music London and St Mary's Portsea (Portsmouth Cathedral). It is in the French Gothic style and makes extensive use of local materials. In its use of layers of differing colours of brick it has a passing resemblance to the Norman Shaw Buildings on the Embankment and Butterfield's Keble College. The reredos is a remarkable triptych displaying local tiles painted at the Craven Dunhill factory behind the Church and reputedly first shown at the Paris Exhibition of 1862. Unusually for a parish church there is a large rose window in the west wall.
The church itself was funded as a memorial to George Prichard sometime High Sheriff of Salop. The other memorial to him, in the Broseley square has been demolished. There is a memorial plaque to Alexander Brodie, iron master of Calcutts who died 5th June 1830 some years before the church was consecrated in 1863.