Moseley is mentioned in the Doomsday book of 1086. The name is Anglo-Saxon, and means a mouse hole clearing in the forest, possibly a joke description of a very small forest clearing.
When the church was rebuilt in 1909, foundations of earlier buildings were found. The oldest work was thought to be from Norman times, which agrees with the stonework at the base of the tower, but there was not enough to identify what that building was.
Pope Innocent seems to have been licensing an existing chapel, but its site is unknown. This was the first chapel.
Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII, was lord of the Manor of Nortune (Kings Norton) and owned land in Moseley. She gave ‘certain waste lands’ for the building of a chapel, the site where we now are. There has been a chapel or church here ever since. The tower was built about 1496, details are available, and 48 cartloads of stone from Bromsgrove were used in its construction. A chapel (the second) was built about 1513. It was about the width of the tower, and came about two thirds of the way up the existing nave. The roof line can be seen on the tower. Both Henry VIII and Edward VI sent commissioners to examine the place. Henry’s report is lost, but Edward’s is in ‘Scraps about Moseley’ (copy on the board in the North Aisle Lounge). Both approved the place. There were three bells, later to be recast.
When Mary Tudor came to the throne, neither the incumbent here nor the masters at Kings Norton had been paid for some time. Letters patent of Philip and Mary in 1558 (also on the board) detail the matter, and order that payment should be made.
This Chapel was in use until about 1775, when it became dangerous. Some say the roof fell in. The local inhabitants could not afford the rebuilding costs, and petitioned George III in 1779 for permission to collect money further afield. This petition was granted (see the board) and building started. However, there was a further appeal in Aris’s Birmingham Gazette in 1782 for funds to complete the work.
The chapel built in 1780 was a plain building, with semi-circular tops to the windows. It was about the width between the existing pillars, and the length of the nave. There is a roof mark on the tower. This building lasted until 1823, when the chapel was too small for the increasing population. Architect Thomas Rickman turned it into an elaborate gothic building, with pointed window arches and crenellations. The floor space remained the same, but the roof was higher. He put in a gallery at the west end, bricking up the old English Arch, visible today. This gallery seated 247 people as well as the choir and music department. There are incidental references to ladies in the choir, and musical accompaniment was at first provided by either a band or a barrel organ. The first barrel organ played six tunes, the second about 30. The music was generated by turning a handle. In 1853 the first manual organ (by Bosward) was installed. For full details see Chris Kearl’s books. The bells were recast, and are now in St Anne’s. A unique peal of eight cast iron bells was installed in the late 19th century. See Paul Lindley’s account. These bells are still with us, and regularly rung.
There is a problem here with dates. A painting existed showing the Rickman church and claimed to be dated about 1812. I have never seen the original, only copies, but I think it must be about 1872, not 1812. Does anybody know where that painting is, if it still exists?
As the population grew, more churches were needed, and All Saints, (Kings Heath), St Anne’s and St Agnes were built in the later part of the 19th century. There was for a time a temporary church on the corner of Oxford Road and School Road. In 1872, the first chancel and organ chamber were built, and our present font replaced ‘a plaster copy of a mediaeval piscina, fixed to the west wall’. This font has been in several different places. In 1887 the North Aisle was built. In 1896 a choir vestry was built (today’s creche), and in 1897 a new organ chamber where the Jones organ was installed, also the south transept (now the Lady Chapel), and the chancel was altered to the shape we have today. In 1909 the church was rebuilt to give the nave and south aisle we have today. The North aisle lounge was constructed in 1970, and the platform which extends into the nave in 1998.
We lost a lot of stained glass in the bombing raid in December 1940, especially in the North aisle, the east end and the Lady Chapel. There are two partially restored windows in the North aisle, ‘The light of the world’ and ‘Washing the feet of Jesus’. The window in the south west porch is a copy of one by Sidney Meteyard which was stolen about 1997. This artist, one of the pre-Raphaelite schools, lived in Wake Green Road, and a brief biography is in one of the Moseley Society publications. All that remains of the Colmore memorial window from the Lady Chapel is in the chancel on the south side. For further details, we still have a few copies of Richard Gibbs’ book about the stained glass for sale, and descriptions of the windows before 1940 are displayed on the board in church.