Church Heritage Record 623245

Wide aisled nave of four bays, transepts leading off the wider east bays, two-bay chancel with organ chamber and choir vestry to the south and priest's vestry on the north. South-west tower and spire.

By W.G. Habershon and A.R. Pite, 1873-74, the parish having been formed from part of Heston in 1871. The gift of £1,600 from W.H. Taylor of Hounslow towards the cost of the building is recorded on a stone built into the south-east corner of the tower, in addition to his gift of the site of the church and Vicarage.

The most notable thing about the exterior is the tower and spire at the south-west corner. The tower is of four storeys with pairs of buttresses at the corners set off at each level until they are dispensed with at the belfry stage. The stages are divided by stringcourses except for the lowest. The ground floor contains the porch of the main door of the church over which is a moulded two-centred arch and dripstone. The hinges and the lamp above are ironwork typical of the period. The next stage of the tower has two lancet lights in each face, then there is the clock face and finally the two-light traceried opening for the belfry stage. There is no parapet, although there are four gargoyles at this level, and the broach spire rises abruptly from the walls of the tower. It is very simple, embellished only with two-light lucarnes reflecting the belfry openings.

Between the tower and the transept only two bays of the nave are visible on the south side of the church. The aisle has paired windows with Decorated tracery and the clerestory of the nave has small openings of alternate trefoils and quatrefoils set in circular frames. The bays of the aisle are divided by buttresses and those of the clerestory by flat projections. The south wall of the transept has a wide Decorated window with five traceried lights in the lower part and a large circle containing and surrounded by trefoils and quatrefoils in the upper part. The window is wide for its height. A small trefoil occupies the very point of the gable and the wall is surmounted by a celtic cross within a circle. The lower part of the transept is lit by four lancet windows with. trefoils in the heads. Clasping buttresses support the corners. In the angle. between the transept and the chancel is a porch sheltering the choir door.

The east wall of the chancel is plain but far the large east window of five lights with a wheel window in the head. The only other decoration is a group of three little lancets in the point of the gable which tie in with a similar group of five in the same position on the wall of the nave above the chancel ridge. The side walls of the chancel have two—light windows of the same type which appear all through this building. In the angle between the chancel and the north transept is the vicar's vestry with a door to the outside and a simple three-light window in the east wall. The north transept and north wall of the nave are identical with the south side of the church.

The west wall of the nave has a projecting porch before the west door and above this is a rose window of twelve sections set in an ashlar surface within a skimpily detailed arch. The gable above has a group of five lancets as elsewhere. All the walls of the church are of ragstone with Bath stone dressings and window surrounds, and the effect of the building is not unattractive because of the care of the massing of parts to form a whole and the meticulous attention to detail (for example, the gargoyles on the tower and the gablets on the kneelers of the gables all round the church. 

The nave arcades are supported on round pillars with foliated capitals of remarkable stylized leaves. Corbels in the aisles are similarly decorated. Above the pillars in the nave, small columns standing on stone brackets support the roof timbers. Where the arches opening into the transepts do not permit this, the beams are borne on corbels carved as angels. The slightly odd feature of the church outside where both south door and west door are given equal prominence is resolved within, for the west door is surrounded with a stone frontispiece consisting of half pillars supporting a lintel decorated with trefoils in roundels. This has a crenellated top broken by a triangular crocketted gable which contains a circle within a trefoil. The whole thing is liberally sprinkled with ball-flower ornaments. The font formerly stood inside the south-west door, but has been moved to a position in the south aisle, about halfway down.

The short transepts open into the nave through wide arches which are carried on separate pillars from the nave arcades, the two piers being tied together by the architraves. The north transept is arranged as a chapel and the south is separated from the body of the church by a wooden screen and roof and forms the choir vestry. The chancel has a wide arch from the nave which is carried on small attached columns on corbels carved with realistic fillies and passion flowers. The organ occupies an arch on the south side while the door to the priest's vestry is in this position on the north. The wide east window is filled with glass depicting scenes from the life and teaching of St. Paul.