Church Heritage Record 623214

Nave with aisles, chancel with chapels, sacristry and vestry to the east and north of the north chancel chapel. The north chancel chapel is used as an organ chamber, whilst the longer south chapel serves as a Lady Chapel. Attached to the east end of the north aisle is a gabled timber bell-cote, whilst a parish hall was added at the west end of the south aisle in 1963.

By G.E. Street. The church was begun in 1863, the foundation stone was laid in the following year, and a year later it was consecrated. Nevertheless it remained unfinished until 1873, and the Building News in 1871 speaks only of the chancel chapels and the easternmost two bays of the nave having been built. The impressive and prominent tower and spire which formed part of the original design were never added.

The church is of yellow brick throughout, with extensive banding in red brick (but very little diapering) both internally and externally. Dressings are of stone, roofs are covered with standard roof tiles with ornamental ridge tiles. The style is Early Pointed, and the details are Early English, with considerable influence of late French Romanesqueand early French Gothic especially in the capitals, font and pulpit. Buttressing occurs only at the west and cast ends. The lights in the aisles are lancets and the clerestorey is composed of three-light windows, which contain three different types of tracery. The first, which is repeated in the three-light east window is a stepped triple lancet composition; the second is characterised by a large quatrefoil in the head; in the third, a smaller quatrefoil is contained by vertical mullions. Where the lights are dominated by a quatrefoil in the tracery, those lights are trefoil headed; elsewhere, they are cinquefoil headed. The large west window of four lights is topped by a large sexfoil. The west wall is decorated with blank arcading of four bays, divided by a central buttress. Above, two short gabled pilasters rise from the coping. In the gable, there is further blank dreading and this id crowned by some banding of brick and stone. Street also paid attention to the eastern gables. Above the east window in the apex of the gable, blank arcading is picked out in stone beneath diaper-like lozenges, the uppermost of which are decorated with sunk circles or stylised quatrefoils. The gable of the south chapel is similarly treated. The nave roof is slightly higher than that of the chancel; those of the chapels are steeply pitched, and the roof of the vestry is pyramidal. Nevertheless the plan and proportions of the church are generally regular and indicative of a fairly straightforward approach fairly straightforward approach by Street in this case.

The interior is wide and fairly high with a prominent altar visible from most parts of the church, and the banding of coloured brickwork is conspicuous. The considerable quantity of stained glass renders the interior rather dark. The nave has arcades of four bays. The circular piers on octagonal bases are of stone, and whilst the arcacling is of brick, hoodmoulding and soffits are emphasised in stone. The capitals are original variations on two main Romanesque Gothic themes. Further east, Street has achieved a most successful definition of the chancel. Not only is it fitted with alabaster and marble capped walling around three sides, but the three-bay chancel arcades are rendered deep by the use of paired marble columns (with capitals of cushion and foliate types), which rise from the sanctuary wall. The chancel arch rises from the sanctuary wall with demi-shafts and quarter shafts. The arch, of stone, is of two main orders and the soffit is composed of a broad fillet. The arch relates chancel and nave quite effectively. The chancel is richly faced with banded alabaster and marble, and both chancel and sanctuary are floored with good encaustic tiles. The stencilled patterns on the east wall, together with the figures of St. Peter and St. Paul which are set in canopied niches flanking the east window, date from 1905 - 7, but they appear to have been part of an original scheme. Above dado level, the chancel walls are of banded brick and the cornice below the roof is, as elsewhere in the church, composed of billet and stylised dogtooth moulding in brick. The sanctuary is finished with a northern piscina, gabled and cinquefoil headed, and a triple sedilia, which is canopied and fitted with crocketted terminals and groined vaulting in marble. Roofs are of timber throughout and are of varied style. The chancel is arch-braced and bearded, and the chapel roofs, being steeply pitched, are treated in a similar fashion. The nave roof, by contrast, is of arch-braced type, but the arch is cut with a trefoil head and forms the base to a short king post. The aisles are of lean-to construction but are nevertheless fitted with half arch braces. The vestry roof is original and ingenious and suggests a western oriented apsidal chapel.