Church Heritage Record 610188

3-bay nave with lobby and belcote, 2-bay chancel, south vestry.

Nave roughly c 12m (40ft) x 6m (20 ft), chancel 5m long.

Built in 1892 as a chapel-of-ease of Hammerwood, replacing an earlier church (originally within Hartfield parish) of 1834 on the site by William Moseley. This was a simple Gothick building, prints showing it are kept in the church. Oswald Augustus Smith of Hammerwood House (commemorated in the church) financed this new church, Hammerwood St Stephen and the Almshouses in Holtye.  It was designed by Lacey W Ridge (according to Goodhart-Rendel and Pevsner), architect and surveyor to the diocese and responsible for several churches and restorations in the area.  He was assistant to Benjamin Ferrey for a time, but does not enjoy anything like the same status or reputation. He also built Ashurstwood Christ Church nearby two years later.  Of his churches Brighton St Albans and Kingston Buci St Giles have also recently been considered for redundancy.

The Sussex Weald had been exploited for its wood and iron ores since at least the Iron Age, This became an industry under the Romans.  An iron-working settlement has been identified in a field called “Blacklands” on Great Cansiron Farm, 1 mile west of the London-Lewes Roman road and less than 1 mile west of the church.  This area was used for iron founding until the early 19th century (there are bloomery sites in nearby Hammer Wood, the name deriving from the industry) and in the 17th and 18th centuries cannons and other ordnance were made here.   The Historic Environment Record should therefore be consulted before any development of the site is proposed.

This is quite a bold design by this architect, whose work has not generally been well thought of.  The main feature of the church is at the west end where there is a square, flat-roofed lobby from which spring flying buttresses to the west wall. The springing is nicely handled, the angle buttresses to the west end terminating in moulded caps which anchor the flying buttresses.

The entrance to the church is through identical ornate doorways in the north and west walls of the lobby (only the north door is used), with a continuously moulded pointed arch of two orders, the outer order carried by one order of engaged columns with moulded caps.  Nice leafy carving to the spandrels within the square frame around the doorway. There is a heavy shouldered belcote for one bell at the nave gable, a notable feature in itself and large enough to have its own louvred lancet and a trefoil panel in the head, under gablets on the gable and a brass weathercock.

The style of the church is basically Early English, with cusped lancets and some stylistically later detailing. There are twin lancets to the west end with engaged columns and foliate capitals, a similar triple lancet to the chancel east window, pointed 2-lights with alternately trefoils and sexfoils in the head to the nave and single lancets to the chancel side walls and lobby south wall.

There are buttresses of two weatherings to each bay, those in the chancel and nave west end terminate in gablets. The chancel is set lower than the nave, and there are small turrets with conical caps like those at the west end rising from the buttresses at the intersection. This feature is also seen at Ridge’s church at Turners Hill near Crawley (St Leonard, built 1894), supporting the accreditation to him.  There are simple stone cross finials to each gable.  The vestry is a significant feature, with a tall stone chimney rising from the south gable. It has a 2-light plate tracery window in the south wall and a rectangular door in the east. Cellar underneath.

One enters the nave through double doors with glazed panels within a doorway with depressed arched head.  The interior has whitewashed walls, clearly suffering from damp penetration around the chancel arch. There are many decorative features which again show that money was available for better than average furnishings and fittings and carved detail, though nothing is exceptional.

The nave is fully pewed with light-stained pine benches with panelled backs and moulded ends, matching choir stalls on the north side with poppyheads.   There is a dado of glazed tiles set in a diamond pattern, which continue around the walls of the chancel below a mosaic reredos across the whole east wall, in turn below stained glass windows within rere-arches above. The chancel is demarcated by a broad moulded and pointed Early English chancel arch taken down to an external order of attached columns and an inner order with consoles.

The vestry on the south side of the chancel is defined by a plain wooden screen, inset doorway with glazed panel. The open timber roof of the nave (a bat-roost) is a crown-post construction, the tie-beams with corner struts, taken down to moulded foliate corbels.  The chancel has a plain waggon roof.  There are woodblock floors to the nave, with quarry tiles in the lobby and chancel. Here is also a mosaic set into the floor, with Alpha, Omega and Chi-Ro and Latin inscription in memory of Charles Evans, 1896.