Church Heritage Record 623480

Nave, apsidal chancel, narrow side aisles, narthex, south chapel, office and vestry space.

Approximately 30m (100 ft) x 20m (67ft).

Wykeham Hall was built in the 1930s and originally served as the church. The new church was built in 1958 to designs by Thomas Ford connecting to Wykeham Hall from the south end of the narthex.

The church and hall present a complex of red brick buildings on the west side of Bishop Ken Road. The Wykeham Hall is to the ecclesiastical south (magnetic north) and comprises a long hall with continuous pitched roof and a lower ‘aisle’ in front with flat copper roofing. The fenestration is all neo-Romanesque with many pairs or triplets of semi-circular headed windows. The north end of the hall adjoining the church has three bays where the line of the eaves is higher than that to the north. Each bay has pairs of semi-circular headed windows. These three bays were originally the chancel of Wykeham Hall when it existed as a church; they are now a chapel to the 1958 church arranged and refurbished in 1995.

The 1958 church adjoins the hall from the chapel at its south east corner and stands at right angles, creating a reverse L shape. The west elevation of the church facing the road shows the very shallow pitch of the roof. A bell turret stands a little awkwardly at the southern corner of the roof, a square base with four brick columns above supporting a copper pyramidal cap.

Projecting from the elevation is a tall brick porch reaching almost to the height of the gable with a curved sloping copper roof. On either side of the porch are single storey flat roofed blocks, which have doorways facing one another; that to the north serves as the main practical entrance to the church. Both also have a series of 5 semi-circular openings in the west wall, which link the church and hall visually, the central opening containing a blind recessed niche. The block to the south links into the ‘aisle’ which runs in front of the chapel and hall.

At the east end there is a shallow apsidal chancel. The apse is blind except for two large windows, almost to full height, divided into two lights at either side where the apse meets the nave, and three pilaster brick strips spaced in-between.

There is no clearstorey to the nave other than one large semi-circular lunette over the centre of the aisle. The aisle has five bays and the windows are tall rectangles each with two mullions creating three thin lights. There is a small rectangular light in the nave wall in between the termination of the aisle and the apse.

The south wall of the nave mimics the north in terms of the aisle and lunette although here, the aisle has just two windows in the eastern bays. There is a flat roofed single storey square vestry that wraps around the east end of the aisle to the end of the nave.

The aisle terminates in the chapel, which has the same windows on this east face as seen on the west elevation. A tall square chimney rises from the chapel roof at the junction of the end of the aisle.

The style changes form neo-Romanesque to neo-Classical with a hint of Art Deco. The nave is an open space with a simple wide barrel vaulted roof in a terracotta tone. Set into the roof at the four corners of the nave are recessed semi-circular lunettes each with a painting by Feisbusch of one of the Evangelists. Centrally are the large fanlight windows on either side with a deep recess cut into the vault, both windows have two sculptures positioned in front of them.

The side aisles are very narrow, little more than ambulatories, and painted a turquoise blue. The arcading to the aisles is unusual and combines four square piers under the fanlights and on either side two slender columns with palm-leaf capitals.

The vault graduates at the chancel and sanctuary, leading into and framing the Feibusch mural. Between the chancel and sanctuary the strip of vault is decorated with series of stars. The floors are plastic tiles in the nave and composite ‘stone’ slabs in the chancel. There are three curved steps to the chancel and a further one to the apse. The church was previously pewed with some inherited Art-Deco style high-backed pews, some of which are still stored in the church yard. These have been replaced with upholstered chairs.

Looking to the ecclesiastical west, the organ pipes are positioned centrally in a gallery within a large semi-circular arch. At the west end of the south aisle there are three large arches with simple leading detail. The central arch opens to the chapel and the other two are plain glazed. The chapel has exposed timber boarding and is arranged with an altar and rail and set with chairs.