Church Heritage Record 619008

7-bay nave and chancel in one, shallow transepts off the chancel, south-east vestry block, porches off west bay of the aisles. Modern lean-to glazed lobbies on the south side.

Worship area, nave c 16m (52ft) x 8m, chancel 8m long

Leicester was the Roman city Ratae Coritanorum, but this church is in an eastern extension of the modern city built in the late 19th century, well outside the walls of the Roman and later Medieval cities. Archaeological evidence from these or other periods is possible but not expected from this site.

The church was built in 1905-6 to an early design by H H Thompson of Leicester. He later designed many fine houses in Leicester in an Arts-and-Crafts style, as well as the distinctive Grade II listed Liberty Shoe factory building on Eastern Boulevard, which was demolished in 2002. Thompson was a partner of the firm Shirley Harrison & Thompson which designed De Mountford Hall.

The new parish was carved out in 1906 of St Michael and All Angels, which had previously been part of Belgrave St Peter. There was apparently a mission church form 1887. It is now reunited with the latter within the large parish of the Resurrection, since 1982.

The western half of the nave was converted in the 1980s with a split-level suite of rooms including toilets and kitchens to facilitate community use of this large building. The remaining worship space has also been reordered within the last 10 years, with the removal of the choir stalls and new forward altar.

This is a large building with a cavernous interior.  Although the budget may have been relatively tight reflected in the simplicity of the design, the architect has managed to create a dignified building with Arts-and-Crafts touches.

The fenestration is of pointed lancets, with a row of seven in the east elevation and single lancets elsewhere to each bay. The west elevation has a 6-light plate tracery window arranged as three stepped 2-lights, shouldered gables as throughout. Four small rectangular windows have been inserted to light the ground floor of the conversion, others have been inserted along the north wall for the same purpose.

The transepts have separate gables, and the twin porches at the west end have broad arched doorways of brick with stone dressings under hood-moulds under stepped and wavy parapets which the aisles also have, the most obvious Arts-and-Crafts touch.  Buttresses to each bay, plain clearstorey. There is a large separately gabled and roofed vestry block at the east end of the south aisle, from which rises a stack.  Glazed vestibules have been built onto the south aisle and above the porch.

Inside, the western three bays of the nave have been partitioned off to full height for the modern two-storey community hall. The remaining two bays and the two bays of the chancel (the eastern is a half-width bay) have arcades of exposed brick with octagonal piers with stone dressings and broad depressed arches with rubbed brick mouldings. From these pilasters rise to corbels supporting a barrel-vaulted roof with tie-beams, the latter painted with a chevron design. The clearstorey and aisle walls are whitewashed. The interior is calm and attractive, if rather sparse.

The interior has been cleared of its original furniture and fittings except for the pulpit, font, the stone ambos, and good contemporary light fittings, these multi-coloured facetted glass globes in an iron “cage” with small pendant lamps. Seating is modern chairs with purple upholstery.  The floor is of woodblock with several steps up to the High Altar, which has been brought forward from a dais against the east wall; the floor has purple carpet here, with a colourfully patterned glazed tile and marble dais for the High Altar at the east end, no longer used.

There is a small north chapel off the east bay of the nave, the full chancel bay to the east houses the organ in a shallow transept here, the pipes displayed within a tall pointed arch. On the south side of the chancel is the large vestry and office block, accessible through a pointed doorway at the east end of the aisle.