Church Heritage Record 637147

Aisled nave with south porch. No tower but a small bell-cote on the east nave gable. Chancel with north and south gabled aisles, the north used as a Quiet Room, and the south as a vestry.

By C.L. Luck, 1862-3, who also built the nearby church of St. Matthew ten years later to a much grander design church was lengthened (presumably westwards) in 1866, and the gabled chancel aisles were added in 1864 (north) and 1871 (south). W. Gilbee Scott modified the chancel to accomodate the organ.

Red brick, with patterns of blue and black brick. The dressings are of stone, and the roofs are tiled. The west front of the church is its most notable external feature, a watered-down version of tough designs favoured by architects such as Burges and Teulon.

Much use is made of the contrast of brick with stone, and there is also some banding in coloured brick. The nave wall is in three stages the lowest an arcade almost entirely of stone with (unexpectedly) three round arches each side of the door. The door itself has two nook-shafts each side and strongly drawn iron work of remarkable geometrical simplicity.

The next level has two pairs of windows separated by a slightly wider blind arch. Between the windows are colonettes and they are outlined in brick. Above a plain stringcourse is a large rosed window with tracery entirely of circles, eight large and eight small round a big central one. The buttresses which flank the wall and distinguish nave from aisles terminate in stumpy stone pinnacles echoed by a similar pair at the camers of the aisle. The aisle walls each have one-light windows.

The south and north aisle walls have single lancet lights at equal intervals save in the east and west bays where there are three lancets together. There seems to be no very good reason for this, as there is also no apparent reason for the spacing of the big round windows which form the clerestory lights. These are outlined with black brick stripes. The east bell-cote is small and undistinguished.

The interior of the church is again characterised by the tough quality of the design here continued with a wealth of over-elaborate painted decoration. The colouring is varied the patterned walls competing with the painted roof timbers, and also with the stained glass with which every window is filled. The basic architectural form of the building, however, is powerful and simple in outline. The pointed arches of the arcade are particularly wide and high leaving little space for the clerestory above. These arches and the arches over all the windows are banded with black bricks, and an odd feature which is rather unsettling is that, as was also evident outside, the bays of the clerestory do not run in step with those of the arcade below the corbels bearing the roof timbers are in fact above the apices of some arches. 

The corbels carrying the roof are extraordinary funnel-like stones carved with exceedingly stylized foliage (almost unrecognisable as such) and painted. The piers of the nave arcade are of smooth stone, and the bases and capitals (of square Early English type) have been painted an orange-brown colour to resemble stone.

The nave roof is carried on angular brackets which support straight cross beams. Upon these stand pointed arches flanked by half arches which take the strain of the principal rafters. The whole roof is ornamented with painted decoration of repetitious lavishness. The panelled roof is diapered with rosettes and other patterns.

The chancel arch is carried on chamfered brick responds with carved foliage capitals, and the space appears cramped because of the intrustion of two large organ cases above the overhang on both sides. This, however, does not interrupt the east windows from view; the three lancets, although treated as separate features outside, are linked within by arches which rest on attached marble colonettes each side and between the lights. The top of each light is trefoiled. Below a cornice the lower part of the wall is painted with a minutely detailed reredos.