Church Heritage Record 631137

Nave of five bays with passage aisles for three bays and cross-gabled transepts for two bays; south-west tower, also forming the porch; chancel with north vestry and south organ chamber.

The church was designed by E.R. Robson and built in 1883-5. The foundation stone was laid on 23 June 1883 by The Hon. J.S. Gathorne Hardy, MP, and the completed church was consecrated by Dr. Thorold, Bishop of Rochester, on 14 July 1885. The builders were Messrs. Naylar and Son of Rochester and the total cost was about £6,000 to which the Incorporated Church Building Society gave £1,000. The south porch was heightened with the addition of a tower and copper spire in 1926 to designs by Farley Cobb. Edward Robert Robson (1836-1917) was born in Durham and, after spending three years in practical building work, became a pupil of John Dobson and then of G.G. Scott.

Since the passage aisles are embraced by the sweep of the tiled nave roof (with only a slight change of pitch), the exterior of the church has a low, spreading appearance. The double transepts and the hipped roof at the west end of the north aisle show a free handling of the gothic style which suggests Arts and Crafts influence (as one might expect from this architect). Robson had intended an exhibitionist south-east tower (the obvious position for a church on this site) and that the later south-west tower above the porch is not his responsibility.

The south side of the church faces the road, and has a pleasantly varied aspect. First, at the west end, is the tower, with Robson's main doorway at the foot, with three receding orders of shafts and moulded arches, the corners being flanked by angle buttresses. There is a small cinquefoiled light above, and then the work of 1926, with differently laid stonework, the upper stages approached by a turret at the north-west angle beside the nave. The clock face on the south and a small loop to east and west are all the openings of the middle stage, and the upper stage has small two-light bell-openings within square recesses which are derived from Kentish examples. The parapet has a simple moulding without battlements, and within it rises a short copper-clad spire capped by a cross.

The bays of the aisle east of the tower have to pairs of windows each, the windows with cusped ogival heads but no hoodmoulds or labels, and the north flank of the nave is the same (without, of course, the tower). Then come the paired transepts, with three-light windows in each gable to north and south, the lights with ogival heads between mullions which run through vertically to the window arches. The west wall of the nave has three windows, a tall central light with cusped head flanked by two-light openings with cinquefoils as tracery. All have moulded surrounds and sills at the same level. The central light is surmounted by an odd canopy with two blind panels and three pinnacles in front of a vent to air the roof-space. The only buttresses on the building are at the corners of the east and west walls, very shallow but with gablets enclosing decorative blind tracery.

The chancel has a vestry under a hipped roof on the north side which precludes any windows, but on the south side has a Y-traceried window with cusping to the east of the cross-gabled organ chamber. The east window is of five lights, the central one rising the full height of the window and the outer lights lower, with cinquefoils above.

The interior of the church is reached through the porch in the base of the tower, where the upper parts of the walls are frescoed with scenes typical of the date (1927), which blend biblical subjects with contemporary people and places. The two west bays of the nave were divided from the others in 1968 by folding doors, and are used for various purposes. They have narrow passage aisles to north and south with alternating cylindrical and octagonal pillars and double-chamfered arches. The walls are painted pink, and the window reveals are white. The roof of the nave, an open timber construction, with scissor-braces to the pricnipal rafters, is a particularly notable feature of the building.

The passage aisles open at the east end into the double transepts which were probably originally intended as chapels, though only the north one is at present arranged as such. The floors throughout the nave are paved with wood blocks.

The chancel floor is two steps above the level of the nave and is paved with red brown and buff tiles. The chancel arch is broad, supported on shafts on corbels. The chancel was refurnished in 1914, when the floor was extended slightly further west and a low wooden screen was provided. This work was all done to designs by H.F. Traylen. The lower parts of the walls were also panelled in oak at this time, all the work being carried out as a memorial to a previous incumbent. There are no architectural features of special note, but the roof is boarded and there is an ogee-headed piscina in the south wall of the sanctuary.