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Listing: Built as a mission church to Christ
Church, Church Road, Tettenhall Wood. 1875. Architect - J.
R. Veal. Locally Listed, approved March 2000.
Comment: Presumably a chapel of ease as much
as a mission church. In 1875 there was very little development in
Finchfield; the population to be served must have been quite small and
the prospect of an immediate increase, remote. But it would have
served that part of Tettenhall which lay on the this side of the valley
of the Smestow Brook, on Finchfield Hill, opposite Tettenhall ridge.
Finchfield contained a number of farmworkers' cottages, a few
farmhouses and one or two gentlemen's residences.
The church is now out of use and it was put up for
sale by auction in 2000 with the suggestion that it be converted to
a house. Nothing seems to have happened. It is likely
that the cost of the conversion was too great for the accommodation
which could be provided - and you would have difficulty in providing
garage access on this narrow site. Since then it has come into the
same ownership as the large garage next door. That, and other
land, was then acquired for Waitrose, who put up a proposal for a
superstore, which this church would have been incorporated into.
The proposal was abandoned, probably on account of opposition based
on traffic and shopping considerations. In 2004 another
developer came along with a not dissimilar scheme for a somewhat
smaller Marks and Spencer food store. This church was shown in
the application as being extended at one end and converted into a
"retail unit". Later the developers said the church would
become a coffee shop associated with the store. We wait to see what
will happen to this proposal.
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