Our History

The earliest reference to a ‘Chapel’ at Great Barr is from around 1250 AD but there are strong grounds to think that a building may have been on the present site since the 1100s.  Then it was a Chapel-of-Ease to the local Manor House and was part of the overall Parish of Aldridge.  The Manor of Great Barr actually dates back into Saxon times and it is possible that there might have been an early preaching Cross at Barr for in the medieval records there is reference to a ‘Richard ad Crucem’ (Richard at the Cross) who lived at Great Barr.  Such a cross might date back to Anglo-Saxon times when the humble Chad and his followers made Lichfield their centre in 669 AD and set out from there on many preaching tours.

People from Great Barr would most likely have visited Lichfield, especially after Chad’s death, when his tomb had become a place of pilgrimage.  Bede described how ‘his sepulchre is covered with a wooden monument made like a small dwelling house, having an opening in the wall, through which those who come there for the sake of devotion are wont to put their hand and take thence some of the dust, which when they have put it in water and given it to sick beasts of burden or men to drink, the grievance of this infirmity being presently removed, they return to the joys of desired health’.

Nearly 1,400 years later we are still here, Christians at worship and inviting each and all to  

         ‘Come follow Christ in the footsteps of St Chad’.