Church Heritage Record 637283

Nave of six bays with north and south aisles; south west tower; chancel with apse and north and south transepts.

86 ½ft (26m) by 24ft (7m); aisles each 14ft (4m) wide; chancel 41ft (12 ½ m) by 24ft (7m).

The church was designed by J. T. Knowles the younger and built in 1869-70. The cost was £13,000. A committee of six, including Scott and Street, was consulted about the design. The church was consecrated on 13 July 1870 by the Bishop of Winchester.

Knowles’ architectural works were mostly designed in the 25 years between 1862 & 1887 and were mostly related to suburban developments. His three known churches other than St Philip’s (St Saviour, Lambeth, of 1864, St Michael & All Angels, Sydenham, of the same year and St Stephen, Clapham Park of 1867) have all been lost, the first two by bombing and the last by later demolition.

Reordering of the church took place in the 1990s and included the removal of the pews in the aisles, provision of toilets in south transept and an enclosed structure  in the south aisle for charity use which was removed during major repair works to the roof in 2000.

St Philip’s is a capacious church in a rather personal Decorated style which was clearly intended to be the principal ornament of the housing estate of which it forms the focal point. The relatively straightforward plan and massing of the building is enriched by vigorous carved stone details, mostly depicting foliage or dragons, typical of the less orthodox architects of the period. Basil Clarke found in the lavish carving and the chancel apse reminiscences of the work of G G Scott.

The church is immediately striking for its sheer size. The substantial tower at the south-west angle is not tall in comparison with the rest of the building, but tells in the townscape for its sheer bulk. It is divided into two stages by a stringcourse at the level of the bell-opening sills and has angle buttresses at the corners. Round the lower parts of the walls are two stringcourses forming a plinth which encircles the remainder of the church, and the upper being set at the sill level of all the windows. The principal doorway has continuous mouldings round the two-centred arch, the middle elaborated with foliage, with a hood having dragons carved at the stops, and the arch is flanked by shafts terminating in finials. Above is a gablet with crockets and a finial, within which is a quatrefoil of diaper. In the west wall of the tower is a two-light window with a tracery quatrefoil. The upper stage has tall two-light bell-openings with a central shaft with foliate capital and a tracery sexfoil. The buttresses have four weatherings and end above the parapet in pyramidal pinnacles. The parapet is decorated with arcading.

The nave has a steeply pitched roof and a large west window with six trefoil-headed main lights and three sexfoils in the tracery. The aisles are divided into bays by buttresses with two weatherings, and each bay has a three-light window with elaborate tracery. Each aisle has four different tracery designs with repeats as necessary. At the wallheads are straight parapets with arcading like that of the tower. Against the eastern bay of the south aisle is a porch projecting further than the adjoining transept, with two small lancets in the west wall with quatrefoils in the heads and a third in the east wall. The south gable has diagonal buttresses and the arched doorway has a continuous order of foliage between two mouldings. The aisle abuts the tower very awkwardly, cutting across the lower part of the east belfry opening.

The chancel is under the same roof ridge as the nave, although the difference is marked by a small copper-clad fleche. The apse projects eastwards from the transepts and has seven faces, each with a two-light window with trefoil-headed principal lights, a central shaft with foliate capital and a tracery quatrefoil, all being in more authentic Decorated style than the nave tracery. At the angles are gabled buttresses which break through the arcaded parapet. The transepts are of symmetrical dimensions but slightly differing designs. The north is the simpler, with a two-light window with an elaborate carved tympanum depicting dragons and birds amongst foliage set low in the north wall and towards the east of the centre. Not only is the elaboration odd in this position, but the window has been obscured by a wall built in front of it between the transept buttresses up to the height of the upper plinth moulding. High in the gable are two lancets with differing tracery designs, a very awkward effect.

The south transept, facing the main thoroughfare, is more elaborate in order, presumably, to balance the tower at the other end of the building. There are two lancets with trefoils in the heads in the south gable and above them a rose window with twenty-four petals, quite a striking feature. In the east wall are two further lancets, these having trefoiled ogee heads and tracery. Both transepts have arcaded parapets continuing the line of that of the nave.

The Decorated style is carried through the building, and is perhaps rather more convincing here than on the exterior of the church, and more deserving of the comparison with the work of G. G. Scott. The arcades are of six bays with moulded arches having flat undersides and stops above each pillar carved with leaves and some of the dragons which appear in various places on the building. There are three designs of pillar, cylindrical on a square base, octagonal on an octagonal base and clustered shafts on a quatrefoil base. The responds are all semi-octagonal and, although the other designs begin asymmetrically at the east end, they are in step halfway down the nave.

The roof has twice as many bays as the arcades and is carried on richly carved foliate corbels and wooden brackets like hammerbeams. There is one tier of arch-braces set lengthwise and a tier of wind-braces above that. The aisles have similar corbels and roofs with arch-braced collars and king-posts with struts. There is a stringcourse at sill level all round the church and all the windows have hoods with foliate stops. The floor is paved with red and black tiles in the alleys and the pews stand on timber platforms.

The principal porch is in the base of the tower, with an arch towards the nave with foliage at the stops of the hood and an arch towards the south aisle with dragons at the stops. Both arches are closed by modern glass doors. The westernmost bay of the north aisle has a modern partitioned room with a low ceiling.

The chancel arch is tall and wide, with a continuously moulded outer order and an inner order carried on shafts with foliate corbels and capitals. At the east end of the north aisle a similar arch of smaller scale has been partitioned but previously opened into the organ chamber in the north transept.

At the east end of the south aisle are two sharply pointed arches of differing size leading to the transept. That on the south has a solid tympanum carved with birds among the foliage. Nearby a doorway with a head carved on one stop and foliage on the other opens into the south porch at the east end of the aisle; modern glass doors have been inserted behind the original timber door.

The chancel is raised on two steps (now covered by a carpeted stepped dais) and furnished with oak stalls on the north and south sides of the first bay, behind which are blind arches with designs carved on the stops of the hoods. The remainder of the chancel takes the form of a seven-sided  apse with tall windows of two lights with tracery quatrefoils in each bay. There is one step east of the stalls, another at the rails and a third before the footpace. The red and black tile paving continues without enrichment. The chancel roof continues the design of the nave roof and is adapted to fit the apse. The only difference is that the corbels here are carved as angels bearing shields, scrolls and musical instruments rather that with foliage and dragons. The panels between the rafters are enriched with gold stars painted on a blue ground, added in c.1960. There were traces of a former scheme of stencilled decoration visible on the south wall.