Church Heritage Record 634269

5-bay double-aisled nave with recessed 1-bay west baptistery, north and south transepts, crossing dome, 1-bay chancel with raised apsidal sanctuary with ambulatory built over a crypt, north vestry and sacristy. 

Nave 24.5m (75ft) by 8m (25ft).

The present church is the third to bear the dedication of St Osmund.  The first was a corrugated iron Mission Chapel erected in 1886 at the top of Castle Hill.  This was replaced in 1894 by a larger corrugated iron church on Florence Road, which became the church hall after 1905 and functioned as such until 1989.

The present brick church was built in stages as money became available, a fact which is not apparent in terms of the stylistic homogeneity of the church, but is reflected in the structural problems now facing the building.  The foundation stone was laid in 1904, and the eastern end in the style of the church of St Zeno in Verona completed the following year, with only a temporary nave.  The architect was G A B Livesay.

The western part of the building was progressed to plans by Professor E Prior in partnership with A Grove, and completed in stages within the period 1913-16, Prior's last major work.  The concrete crossing dome was declared unsafe and rebuilt in 1922 to a design by S Tugwell, this time inspired by the dome of St Vitale in Ravenna.  The choir vestry and sacristy above were added in 1924. 

The south aisle wall was partly rebuilt and provided with flying buttresses in 1950 by L Magnus Austin.  A new church hall was added onto the south-east corner in 1991, designed by the local architect S A Kellaway, after the old hall burned down.

This extraordinary church has a visual impact out of proportion to its size or degree of vertical emphasis, due to the wealth of detail and harmony of design, materials and proportion.  It remains primarily and recognisably  the work of Prior, despite the earlier work and later alterations.

Beginning at the west end, the complex west front is framed by twin circular towers of clustered brick shafts of a Greek character rising above the nave, with an open belfry stage capped with domed turrets which in turn have cross finials.  The nave west front itself has a large rose window with complex radial leading, below an open gallery of five round-headed arches, and surrounded by lozenge terracotta tiles. 

Below this is a slightly projecting porch with a broad segmental terracotta arch decorated in relief with vine trail, with a double-leaf central door deeply recessed within brick splays under a plain terracotta surround with flat-arched head. The baptistery west walls flanking the nave have two simple tall arch-headed windows each, the windows divided by a strip pilaster which rises to a brick corbel table of blank segmental arches below a plain parapet, a motif employed right around the aisles. 

The north baptistery have a single wide square-headed entrance, with a Portland stone statue of St Osmund. The aisles and clearstorey are treated simply, with respectively five arch-headed windows and five round windows, with splayed projecting surrounds. The aisle roofs are broken by slopes of internal buttresses joining similar shafts up to the clearstorey eaves.

The transepts are the same height as the nave, and have a circular red terracotta window with 8 divisions around an octagonal centre in their outer gables, again with elaborate leading, framed within strip pilasters. They are otherwise quite plain externally, the south transept (by Prior) shorter and containing a pair of round-headed lights below the rose window. The crossing dome is conventional, balancing the twin turrets at the west end, with a low cupola, and circular windows with a Lombardic brick frieze corbelled out on the usual segmental brick arches.

The earliest part of the building is the east end, of red brick with roughcast render and red terracotta dressings. The sanctuary apse is articulated by red terracotta pilaster strips dividing apse wall into regular panels with 3 round-arched heads, and has a moulded frieze and semi-circular brick coping, with a pair of green glazed terracotta colonnettes supporting coping gablets either side. They are mounted on diagonal pilaster buttresses framing the gable wall.

The first storey chancel has a 2-light window either side, with round-arched heads to lights with plain jambs and central shaft with composite capital; above this is a round-arched corbel table, with moulded yellow terracotta eaves. The south chancel chapel has an apsidal east end where the ground falls away, with a loggia under the apse, with 3 small windows at high level with round-arched heads, corbelled brick eaves, pantile roof and gablet over apse framing relief carving with a cross and the date 1916. There is a 2-storey, 3-bay vestry and sacristy range on the north side of the chancel, with round-arched windows.

The chancel apse has a semicircular peristyle defining the ambulatory, with fluted Ionic columns bearing a curved entablature, all of red terracotta. The semi-dome of the apse is framed by a buff terracotta arch on plain terracotta piers jointed to resemble ashlar, with red terracotta Byzantine-style capitals.  Similar round arches, piers and capitals to the crossing, with yellow terracotta winged angel busts to the angles. Curved walls with balustrades flank the marble steps up to the chancel, all in buff terracotta. 

The Lady chapel in the south transept is extremely richly decorated with onyx and marble panels framed in brass. The north transept contains the Compton organ with its display of dummy pipes against the north wall.

The nave arcades of 3 bays are round-headed, carried on square piers with thin moulded capitals in red terracotta with egg and dart decoration, above which rise plain pilaster piers with red terracotta capitals decorated with moulded foliage ornament in relief, continuing again as transverse arches across the nave. There is a complex timber roof to the nave and aisles, with chamfered ridge pieces and rafters.

The outer aisles have transverse arches pierced through internal buttresses with segmental-arched heads and concrete barrel vaults, borne on intermediate columns between the principal buttresses; these columns are plain classical with moulded bases on square plinths, and have red terracotta capitals with foliage decoration, bearing plain lintels. 

Stairways flanking the west door lead to the belfry and also give access to a west gallery below the rose window with fine wrought iron railings, giving excellent views down the length of the church.

The floors are of woodblock, with some subsidence and warping visible. There are areas of carpetting in the chancel and chapels.