Church Heritage Record 627229

The church is an unfinished fragment representing about two-thirds of the proposed building. Work started at the east, and there exists a chancel of three bays with passage aisles separatingit from the Lady Chapel on the south and a vestry on the north with a chapel and organ chamber above approached by a stair from the north transept. Three bays of the nave were built, the eastern two opening into wide transepts. The west bay begins the plan proposed for the three unbuilt bays with aisles and clerestory.

By Alfred Marden Mowbray, a pupil of Charles Buckeridge and then with Street, thus well-disciplined in the ecclesiastical architecture of the Oxford Diocese. He was architect to the sisterhoods of Clewer and Wantage and laid out part of Eastbourne. For the most part his work was ecclesiastical. The church was built by Wooldridge and simpson of Oxford. The foundation stone was laid on 11th February 1909 and the church was consecrated on Michaelmas day of the same year.

The walls are of Hanbrough stone with Box Ground dressings. The west wall is of brick. The roofs are tiled. 

The style in which the church is built is old-fashioned for the date, being Early English of the type favoured a generation earlier, without even a hint of the Arts and Crafts movement which in 1909 was well into its heyday. The only slight indication of an acquaintance with the movement are a few quirks in the plan, such as the double width transepts and uncommonly wide aisles.

The church is faced with machine-cut stone which gives a severe aspect, especially when seen together with the machine-made tiles on the roofs. The usual approach is from the south west through a lych gate, and from this point the brick west wall of the nave is a reminder of the unfinished state of the building. One bay of the nave is complete with three lancet lights in the aisle and a triple light in the clerestory. 

The south wall of the south transept has two large four-light windows with identical geometrical tracery in the unusually wide gable. Between them is a circlet containing a quatrefoil and high in the gable a tiny lancet.

The Lady Chapel, on the south side of the chancel, has two and a half bays, the two full bays with three lancets in each, and the smaller east bay blind. The east wall has triple lancets under a continuous hood-mould.

The east wall of the chancel, overlooking the Vicarage garden is, like the transept, very tall, with a five-light window incorporating two trefoils and cinquefoil.

The north wall of the chancel is visible because the vestry does not obstruct it as much as the Lady Chapel on the south. It is seen to have clerestory lights of the same pattern as those in the single nave bay.

Apart from the vestry, the north side of the building corresponds closely to the south. The whole composition is crowned by a small bell-cote of stone on the east gable of the nave, with a single bell hanging in a arch above which is a pierced quatrefoil.

The single aisled bay of the nave has a tall arcade which embraces the clerestory, much as Tapper might have done, the actual arch of the arcade being reduced to secondary place within this. The reason is that the arcade continues right across the transepts, giving internally three bays to the nave, and resolving the awkwardness which can arise from large transepts which do not have a crossing space in which to join the nave.

The unification of arcade and clerestory within one unit is Camemphasized by an attached shaft which runs almost to the wall-head between each bay, having the same moulded capitals as are to be found throughout the interior of the building. The roof of the nave is a pine panelled wagon vault.

The transepts are wide, with similar panelled roofs, and are identical except for slight variations in the tracery. The north transept has a stair on the east wall which leads up to a small chapel over the vestry and an organ chamber facing into the chancel. The south transept in the corresponding position opens into the Lady Chapel through an ample arch. The windows in the south wall are set within arcades, an interesting feature, but one which makes the chapel dark. The east bay, which is narrower, has a stone credence shelf. The triple lights of the east window are also within an arcade carried on two large corbels carved as angels with scrolls. A reredos was evidently intended.

The chancel continues the rhythm of the nave, the two parts only minimally separated by the tall chancel arch which, if the hanging rood is excepted, hardly defines the change. The three bays of the side walls follow the example of the nave in having arches embracing the clerestory, the proportions being slightly changed by the taller clerestory windows which push the horizontal division lower than the nave. The arches open on north and south into the arcades mentioned above, except for the east bay where the rhythm is broken and there are four arches, four sedilia on the north and three sodilia and a piscina on the south.