Church Heritage Record id18592

Four and a half aisled nave with south-west tower; short transepts open off the eastern bay. Short chancel, north vestry.

By William Railton, begun in 1843 and consecrated in May 1844. Railton was the architect of Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square which had been finished in the previous year. He also submitted designs for the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster after the fire in 1835; his other London church is Holy Trinity Hoxton, four years later than St. Bartholomew's, but the design is much the same save that it is faced with stone. St. Bartholomew's was damaged in the Second World War and re-opened on 14th September 1955.

Although ostensibly cruciform, the church is in fact little more than an aisled rectangle, since the transepts scarcely project beyond the plane of the aisle walls. The style is Early English, with lancets in pairs save in the east and west gables where there are triple lights. The bays of the aisles are divided by buttresses with stone cappings and there are two-centred arched doorways at the west end and in the south transept. Each has a pair of nook-shafts and rudimentary dogtooth round the arch. The bays of the clerestory are recessed, leaving pilaster strips to mark the bays, and the chancel is roofed in one with the nave.

At the south-west corner of the nave stands the tower, of which only the lower two dages were built. The lower has a high plinth pierced with small rectangular openings which light the room within and above that the wall is blind, decorated by arcading on slender shafts. The upper stage, within which is the bell, has tall paired louvred lights with trefoiled heads. Angle buttresses are finished at the top of this stage with sharp gablets, and the tower is roofed with a slated pyramidal eap. In the corresponding position on the north-west, the aisle stops short of the west wall of the nave to allow for a tall single lancet which lights the staircase to the west gallery. The hall abuts close on this side, but there are no architectural features save paired lancets as in the south aisle wall. The north transept also has a pair of lancets but lacks the doorway of its southern counterpart. The low vestry is a latter addition of no interest. The chancel is lit by two lancets in each side wall and by the three lancets in the east wall.

Access to the church is normally by way of the west door into a tiny square antechamber under the west gallery which has, rather surprisingly, a little rib vault with foliated contre boss. To the left is the stair to the gallery, with stone steps and iron handrail, and to the right is a blank wall which is the north wall of the tower. After the constriction of the entry, the church itself is open and spacious. Although there are aisles, transepts and chancel, the divisions between these areas are minimal, allowing the whole church to feel one room. The arcades are carried on tall octagonal piers with moulded capitals and bases and the eastern pair of arches arch is taller and wider, opening into the north and south transepts. The floor is of synthetic tiles laid over cement. The walls are painted pale blue with the architectural features such as the piers in vivid yellow. 

At the west end of the nave is a gallery spanning the nave and aisles carried on four cast-iron piers with heavy moulded capitals. The roofs of nave and aisles are boarded, with moulded ribs in rectangular patterns. The clerestorey like the aisles, has windows in plain reveals without mouldings or chamfers, and is structurally unmarked from the arcade below save by horizontal heatire pipes which take the place of a string-course just above the apex of the arches.

The chancel arch has no imposts, but dies into the walls at a high level supported by boldly carved heads as corbels. The outlining moulding terminates in foliated stops. The east wall is the most elaborately detailed part of the interior, the three lancets being grouped together within a triple arch carried on detached quatrofoil groups of shafts. The heads of the windows are outlined by orders of moulding and dogtooth, and there are more stops carved as heads at each spandrel. The composition is linked to the lateral walls by blind trefoiled arches of proportions similar to the outer lights of the window.