Church Heritage Record 623059

Nave of five bays with aisles and clerestory; north-west tower and spire; south-west baptistery; chancel with organ chamber on the north side and Lady Chapel on the south, to the east of which lies the sacristy and various passages connecting the church with the clergy house. There is a crypt chapel beneath the chancel.

The church was designed by Thomas Cundy the younger (1790-1867) and was built in 1847-50. Cundy was responsible for several churches in London, and especially in this area since he succeeded his father as surveyor to the Duke of Westminster (to whom most of the land belonged) in 1825.

A baptistery was added at the south-west corner in 1902 to designs by Frederick Hunt, and the interior of the church was adorned by Bodley and Garner and John Ninian Comper between 1893 and 1906. The whole building, in particular the tower and spire, was restored in 1927-30 at a cost of £5,000.

In contrast with its colourful furnishings, the church is a restrained essay in the Early English or First Pointed style, with lancet windows almost throughout. The west front faces the street and has three shafted lancets of equal height under moulded arches set above the west door. The doorway has receding orders of shafts at each side and a richly moulded arch, the oak door being of two leaves with good scrolling iron hinges. In the gable above there is a rose window of eight petals. To the south the aisle has a single shafted lancet in the west wall, with a four-lobed light in a roundel above and the later baptistery further south again has an identical lancet. The baptistery is covered with a flat roof.

To the north of the west front stands the tower, within the west bay of the aisle. It is divided externally by stringcourses into five stages and has slender set-back buttresses at each corner which die into the walls below the belfry. The lowest stage has one lancet to the west and is blind to the north, and the next stage appears to be blind altogether (at this level is a stone vault within). Then there is the ringing chamber with one lancet towards the west, followed by a silence chamber with roundels in each face, that to the west housing a clock face. Finally comes the bellchamber with triple louvred lancets in each direction of a pattern similar to those in the west wall of the nave. There is no parapet, but the severely plain and impressively substantial spire rises directly from a corbel table with four low broaches and two-light lucarnes set low in the principal faces. It has no other decoration, not even a roll moulding up the angles.

Each bay of the aisles and the clerestory has a single shafted lancet, with stops carved either as foliage or as human heads. The aisle bays are divided by buttresses. The second bay of the south aisle houses the door which is normally used, and this is protected by a porch with clustered shafts at each side with foliate capitals and a heavily moulded arch incorporating one order of dogtooth. Within the porch there are benches on each side, and the ironwork on the oak door is as good as that on the west door.

The chancel is in the same style, with three graded lancets in the east wall and a sexfoil high in the gable. On the north and south sides the organ chamber and Lady Chapel continue the roof line of the aisles, stopping short of the east wall, and the organ chamber has lancets like the rest of the church. The Lady Chapel has an eastern lancet but the south window, of three cinquefoiled lights under a straight head, may be an alteration by Comper. The sanctuary is lit by a lancet in the north and two lancets in the south wall. The sacristy lies on the south side of the sanctuary and is approached by a small passage paved with red and buff patterned tiles which formerly covered the whole chancel floor.

The nave has walls of exposed stone, with arcades carried on alternately round and octagonal pillars with exuberant foliate capitals. As a result of the substructure of the tower in the west bay of the north aisle, the second arch is narrower than the others, and more acutely pointed. The tower space opens to the church and the aisle through tall arches with responds of several receding chamfered orders. The space is vaulted, with four ribs decorated with dog-tooth and heads carved on the corbels. The arches of the nave arcades are of two chamfered orders and are outlined by moulded hoods with heads of knots of foliage above each pillar. The clerestory is marked by a stringcourse, and at this level elaborately foliated corbels support wall-shafts which carry the principals of the roof structure. These support collars and are strengthened by arch-braces. A distinctive feature of the roof is the pairs of wind-braces in each bay. The windows of the aisles and the western triplet of lancets are all shafted within.

The chancel arch is tall and refined, with semi-octagonal responds with moulded bases and foliate capitals, the arch having two chamfers. The chancel floor was originally paved with tiles throughout and two arches on the north open into the organ chamber, one on the south into the Lady Chapel, both of which chambers also communicate with the aisles. The panelled chancel roof is of three bays and there are lancets in the north and south walls and three graded lancets in the east wall with a sexfoil in a roundel above. Below these windows, the east wall is provided with arcading.

The chancel had parclose screens in the north and south arches, and these still exist. The original chancel screen, however, was later replaced, although the painted decoration of tiers of niches each holding a figure of a saint show by their termination where the first screen stood. The brass gates of the old screen were re-used in the present one. The stalls, with their curved arm rests and misericords, are original. The tiles on the floor are original, of red and buff, as are the steps of Purbeck marble.

In the south wall of the sanctuary are three sedilia and a quatrefoil piscina under trefoiled arches which step up towards the east. 

Beneath the chancel is a crypt, square in plan with four bays arranged round a central pillar. The pillar is cylindrical, supporting a ribbed vault, and there are windows in the east and north walls. In the north wall also a door communicates with a store room beyond. The crypt is approached by a flight of sixteen steps from the south side, the direction of the clergy house, and there is a short passage connecting the head of the stairs with the hall in the clergy house and the south aisle of the nave.

Between about 1890 and 1905 the interior of the church was transformed, chiefly by G.F. Bodley and J.N. Comper. The reredos was erected in 1893, and is typical of Bodley's style, being richly carved with several tiers of scenes and figures of saints and angels. The sanctuary floor was repaved with black and white marble and the walls were covered with stencilled brocade patterns. These are of two principal colours and types. Below the stringcourse is a large repeating pattern of swirling forms executed in dark green on pale green, while above is a more static pattern of pineapples, flowers and leaves in dark red and crimson. The panels of the three-bay roof were stencilled with the sacred monogram IHS and roses alternately, and the big foliated bosses were also coloured. The credence shelf on the north side was converted into an aumbry for the holy oils, a richly canopied niche with a semi-hexagonal pillar below the shelf.

The furnishings of the Lady Chapel to the south of the chancel are entirely by Comper, and comprise two stained glass windows, two parclose screens, an altar and a retable, all beneath a large square tester. These all date from 1900.

In the nave Bodley was more restrained. He added a simple scrolling stencilled pattern to the wall-plates of the roof, and provided a case incorporating statues for the western face of the organ above the altar of St. John the Baptist. Within the tower space is a Calvary of oak of 1910, carved in Oberammergau. On the opposite side, the baptistery was added in 1902 and the original font was moved into it. The windows are shafted lancets like all the others in the church, and the roof is provided with a rib vault like that of the crypt chapel. Since the space is rectangular, there are additional narrow bays to the east and west. The walls are decorated with blind stone arcading, and the floor is paved with white mosaic with the names of the seven Virtues in Latin in roundels. The font is set on a red marble step.