Church Heritage Record 620394

Nave and chancel, north and south aisles, organ chamber, octagonal vestry, west porch, south east vestry.

Nave and chancel 35m/115ft x 7m/23ft. North aisle 3m/10ft wide. South aisle 6m/20ft wide.

The Resurrection was built in 1853 to designs by George Gilbert Scott on a plot of land given by the Duke of Sutherland. The original design was for the nave, north aisle and chancel.  Ten years later the south aisle was added, possibly by Charles Lynam who enlarged the building again in 1872/3 by extending the nave and aisles by two bays to the west. The organ chamber was added in 1879.  In 1903, 50 years after the original construction, J H Beckett extended the chancel to the east and memorial windows were also added at this time. Later still in 1920 an octagonal choir vestry was added at the west end as a World War One memorial. More recently grants for repairs have been obtained from English Heritage and the Historic Churches Preservation Trust.

The church of the Resurrection is not easily described or categorised. It uses strong decorative diaperwork and shows how easily successive extensions to a building can distort any sense of the original design.

The nave is tall with a continuous pitched roof to the chancel, the division marked by a slender tiled (originally Minton tiles) fleche carried on moulded timbers. The chancel has a polygonal apse with three cross-gables at the same height as the roof giving the chancel an elongated and not altogether elegant appearance. Each gable has a window of three equal lights with three roundels set under a pointed arch. Beneath each window there is enough blind wall to allow for a large lozenge decorative band.

The line of the extension to the chancel can be seen by the colour change in the brickwork on both the north and south elevations. To the north side there is just one single lancet window with a cusped head. To the south elevation there are two of these windows and then further to the west, at the junction with the aisle gable, there are two smaller cusped lancets paired together. Tacked against the north wall of the chancel there is a small vestry lean-to which runs to the east end of the aisle. There are small rectangular openings and a door with a slight pitch which breaks the line of the roof. 

The north aisle and elevation is simple and neat and is probably the work of Lynam who we know extended the building in 1873. The aisle leans against the nave with a clearstorey above. Of the six bays, five have single cusped lancet windows and the penultimate bay to the west has a single doorway. The west end of the aisle links with the later vestry which is described below. To the east of the aisle there is a double storey square organ chamber with a wide parapet and flat roof. The expanses of brickwork here are blind and show off the banded lozenge decoration with the only openings being three small lights at low level to the east and the north.

The south aisle is more complicated; it has its own separate pitch which dies into the nave creating an awkward junction. The clearstorey, on this side, sits beneath the eaves of the nave but directly against the aisle roof restricting light into the nave.  There are six lights as seen on the north elevation and a central band of continuous decorative brickwork.

The east and west elevations of the aisle each have two separate cusped lancets with a quatrefoil roundel over.  Both gables have decorative arch-braced barge-boards. On the east elevation the boiler house has been positioned below the window and abuts the vestry against the chancel wall.

The west end of the building, the main approach from the Dresden estate, has the most incongruous addition to the building. Positioned on an angle against the west end of the north aisle and the porch is the choir vestry built as a memorial in 1921. It is an irregular octagon with pyramidal roof set behind a high parapet. The west and north faces each have triple lancets of equal height and the smaller faces in-between are stone memorial plaques. Access to the vestry is from the porch via a small link section. The porch projects from the west elevation with its own pitched roof. The west elevation has the same arch-braced barge-boards and a large window of four equal lights with three roundels which is boarded up.

The interior is rather dark and gloomy. The font is positioned at the west end of the north aisle which serves as a baptistery. Opposite, in the south aisle there is a screened vestry area.  The nave and aisles have open backed pews (very similar in design to those introduced by Scott at Ketton, St Mary in Peterborough diocese in 1861). The arcade is of six bays and has octagonal piers continuing into single-chamfered arches. The arcade and all window surrounds have red and yellow banded brick decoration.

Both aisles have raised chapel configurations at the east ends. The south aisle also has a small door leading to the vestry. The chapel in the north aisle conceals the arched opening to the organ chamber which is used for storage; the pipes from the organ face into the chancel. The chancel and sanctuary are panelled in oak with memorials carved into the woodwork. The chancel is painted in blue with fleur de lis, Alpha and Omega symbols on the sanctuary walls.  The roof in the nave has eight king post trusses with intermediate scissored trusses.