Church Heritage Record 637270

Nave with north and south aisles of differing plans, south tower, transepts; chancel with semi-circular apse, south chapel and north vestries.

Nave 77ft. by 24 ft.; chancel 30ft.by 17ft

By William Oakley of Charles Street, St James’s, 1872-3. The site was given, with £750, by Edwin Clarke and the foundation stone was laid on 3 October 1872. The date for the consecration was fixed for 26 May 1873 but, although the church came into use in June that year, the consecration was not performed until 2 September 1874 so that the debts on the building could first be paid off. The builders were Messrs. Roberts. Of the architect nothing seems to be known, unless he was the William Oakley of London who designed St Thomas’s, Bourne, Surrey (1881, replaced in 1911)

The tower was completed in 1888 without the intended spire and a north aisle was added and the south aisle widened at about this time. In 1890 an outer north aisle was built to designs by Victor John Grose. A north vestry followed in 1892, and in 1894 the original vestry on the south side of the chancel was rebuilt as a chapel. Damaged in the War, the church was repaired and restored and the north aisle was partitioned off to form meeting rooms. The church was re-opened on 21 November 1953. 

In 1999 refurbishment of the north aisle rooms was carried out to create a small hall; part of the north transept was also converted into a choir-robing vestry and the organ was relocated to the north transept. The old vestry was also refurbished at this time to create additional meeting rooms.

The nave is quite broad, with a five-light west window with equal lancets set in plate tracery with two quatrefoils and a big septfoil above. Below it is a Caenarvon-arched doorway, and in the apex of the gable is a trefoil light.

The tower which forms the most prominent feature of the exterior stands on the south side of the nave against the second bay from the west and houses the porch for the principal entrance to the building. It is of three stages, with the doorway in the south face of the lowest stage, the moulded arch set on two pairs of shafts, and the shields of the Diocese of Southwark and Canterbury carved on the stops of the hoodmould. In a niche above is a figure of St Augustine. The middle stage has a narrow lancet in each face and the uppermost stage has two big louvred lancets in each face except the west where there is only room for one (of slightly broader proportions) beside the top of the stair turret. The corners of the lower two stages have angle buttresses and the stair turret in the north-west angle rises above the roof in an octagonal stone turret.

There is no aisle to the west of the tower, only a window with two lancets and a roundel in plate tracery. To the east of the tower are two bays of aisle, with a two-light window. The clearstorey has three circular lights in each bay. Then comes the south transept, with three lancets (the middle one slightly wider and taller than the outer pair with a cinquefoil in the gable) and beyond that a small rectangular chapel with a hipped roof which lies on the south side of the chancel. The curve of the chancel apse, with three lancets linked by a moulding at sill level and by connected hoodmoulds completes the elevation of the building.

The north side is much plainer, with the north aisle lying close against the slope of the hill and the longer transept having three lancets (this time of equal size) and a cinquefoil in the gable. Eastwards of the transept is a rectangular block housing two vestries and the previous organ chamber. The choir vestry has two pairs of lancets in the north wall and three in a group and a doorway in the east wall, and the clergy vestry also has a group of three lancets in the east wall.

The interior has plastered walls painted off-white with white reveals to windows and doorways. The floor is paved with composition tiles at one level throughout. The nave is of five bays with slightly larger arches opening into the transepts from the eastern bay.

The progressive enlargement of the church shows in some slight infelicities such as the fact that the front pair of pillars in the nave are not parallel to each other and that the design of the transept arches differs slightly – that on the south is less tall than that on the north, and has a clearstorey window opening into the transept roof above.

The arches of the arcades have two chamfers down to the floor. The south aisle is of two bays and does not continue beyond the tower. The north arcade is of five bays and the west window of the aisle consists of two lancets and an uncusped roundel. The doorway into the parish rooms in the outer north aisle is opposite the principal doorway at the foot of the tower. The stone corbels of the nave roof timbers are carved with the Emblem of the Evangelists on the four easternmost corbels, the others being carved with wheat and grapes, lilies and passion flowers. The roof timbers have scissor-braced principals and three tiers of purlins.

The chancel arch is very tall in proportion to its width and has an outer continuous moulded order and an inner order carried on corbels at the springing. Musician angels are carved at the stops. A carpetted platform with a freestanding altar was erected to the west of it in 1986. The chancel floor is paved with red tiles and the bays of the walls are articulated by shafts, as are those of the apse. On the south side three small arches open into the chapel, which also communicates with the south transept through another arch. A larger arch on the north shows the organ display pipes, as does an arch in the west wall opening into the transept. The south chapel has a low-pitched boarded roof with shallow arched ties and a small niche in the north-east corner with marble colonettes framing a credence shelf.

The lower parts of the apse walls have cusped pairs of arches under triple crocketted gablets with the Emblems of the Evangelists and passion florets carved at the stops. The arches are provided with marble shelves, those on the south set lower to form sedilia. The altar stands on a marble footpace and the reredos is in the same style as the niches between which it stands. The chancel has a boarded cradle vault which curves round the apse; it is all painted blue.