Church Heritage Record 646096

Nave of five equal bays and a narrower west bay, with aisles and clearstorey and double transepts; west porch; chancel with north chapel and south organ chamber and vestries. The falling ground allows rooms under the chancel, and although there is no tower there is a small octagonal turret at the junction of the Lady Chapel and north transept.

Nave 79ft by 24ft; aisles each ll½ft wide; chancel 32ft. by 23ft.

By T H. and F Healey, 1899-1902. The church was paid for by Sir Francis and Lady Powell of Horton Hall. Lady Powell laid the foundation stone in the summer of 1899 (it is described as having been laid shortly before a press report dated 3 June that year) and the completed church was consecrated on 1 April 1902. The builder was William Farnish.

The interior was sub-divided in the mid-1980s to form a restaurant, meeting rooms, kitchens and WCs in the four western bays of the nave and aisles. Later work has divided the south transept and vestry into a community room and office and enclosed the Lady Chapel.

The west front is a good design, abutting the pavement so that the principal doors were placed in a pent-roofed narthex; only the north can be seen with two pairs of shafts and a bold richly moulded trefoiled arch outlined by a hood with foliate stops. The south door opens into a new porch which leans onto the aisle, and has a plain doorway and small pairs of windows on either side with rectangular heads. The west wall of the narthex is divided into two bays by gabled buttresses, and each bay has three bays of arcading, the outer two of which are blind while the wider middle bay is pierced by a window consisting of two rectangular lights divided by a mullion set below a sexfoiled roundel. The nave gable above has buttresses at the angles and four lancets of equal height arranged in two pairs with heads linked by a continuous hood. In the apex of the gable is a circular panel containing a blind octofoil with a single light like a four-leaved clover pierced through the middle.

The aisles have windows of two lights with a trefoil in plate tracery set under a moulded hood with returned ends in their west walls. There are no buttresses except at the eastern corners of the chancel, and each bay of the aisles has a pair of lancets save for the narrower western bay where there is only one. Those on the north, towards the main road, have the decoration of a recessed cross within a roundel between the arched heads. The clearstorey also has pairs of lancets to every bay except the western, and at this level they are provided with hoods.  A buttress at each side marks the division between nave and chancel, and the bays of the chancel clearstorey are marked by pilaster strips. The double transepts are gabled at right-angles to the body of the church and each has a two-light window with a tracery trefoil in plate tracery in the gable wall.

The east gable of the chancel derives additional height from the fall of the ground which allows rooms at a lower level. At the angles are buttresses, and the east window takes the form of three graded lancets with ringed shafts and moulded heads. The smaller gable of the chapel on the north has four lancets and a sexfoil within plate tracery. The north wall of the chapel has two pairs of lancets and one single lancet, and at the west end in the angle with the transept is a turret which begins square at the

ground, and is then chamfered to form an octagon which rises above the level of the aisle parapet into a bell-stage with a louvred lancet in each principal face, the hoods linked by strings across the intermediate faces, and small sexfoils high in the intermediate faces. The spirelet is of stone.

The interior is rather more impressive than the exterior might suggest, and has a successfully medieval feeling. The walls are faced with exposed stone with ashlar dressings and the nave floor is paved with red and black tiles in the alleys and laid with wood blocks under the pews. The bay design consists of alternately octagonal and cylindrical pillars to the arcades, arches with a hollow chamfer and a convex chamfer outlined by a moulded hood, wall shafts with moulded capitals rising from corbels above each pillar and paired clearstorey lancets with central ringed shafts and a stringcourse at sill level. The roof has tie-beams with king-posts and arch-braces at each bay. The western lancets have ringed shafts.

The transepts each form a virtually square space with a central octagonal pillar. The south transept has been partitioned off to create a day centre with IT resources and the vestry to the east is now used as an office. The north transept houses the font, which was moved here from the west end of the north aisle and placed next to a doorway which forms the entrance to the part of the church still used for worship. To the east of the north transept is an arch connecting to the Lady Chapel, now enclosed by glazed panelling to create a separate room. A ramp follows the north wall of the transept turning 90° to lead up to the chapel, and there is a small doorway with a shoulder arch in this corner, steps also lead to the chapel directly from the east of the transept.

The chancel arch is tall and wide, richly moulded and carried on triple shafts (the middle one keeled) with moulded bases and capitals. The chancel floor is raised three steps above the level of the nave and is paved with red tiles laid diagonally and divided into squares by lines of black tiles with fleurs-de-lys at the intersections. There is a further step east of the stalls, another at the rails, a sixth within the sanctuary, and the altar stands on a footpace.

The east wall of the chancel has three shafted lancets set high in the wall, with a virtually square reredos above the high altar and two bays of trefoiled stone arcading with filletted shafts and foliate capitals at each side. There are three bays of similar arcading on the south wall, two recesses under triangular heads forming the sedilia and a credence shelf under the easternmost arch. The whole interior of the chancel is well- proportioned and detailed.