Church Heritage Record 641229

Street's church had a nave, chancel and south transept, of which the transept has disappeared, but the rest remains. Pearson's north aisle and choir and clergy vestries also remain. Blomfield's church consists of a large five-bay nave (the bays not co-inciding with the earlier work), with a west narthex, and south aisle (at the west end of which is a small and circular turret said to have been removed hither from the junction of Street's nave and chancel) . The chancel, under the same roof, is of one further bay, and an organ chamber oocupies the position of a transept on the south side. 

The nave and chancel of Blomfield's church are 105 feet long, and the nave is 36 feet wide; the overall width of the whole church is almost 95 feet.

The building history of the church follows the growth of the town. In 1868 Street built a small church (the population being about 500) for the railway workers. A north aisle was added by Pearson in 1884, and a large new nave with south aisle and chancel was added to the south by Arthur N. Blomfield and Sons in 1899-1905.

The church is faced with local grey stone and roofed with tiles. The style is Decorated, expanded to accommodate large numbers at as low a cost as possible. At the south-west corner is a thin turret re-used from Street's church with a conical tiled spirelet which does not even reach the height of the nave gable. The west front of the church is obscured in the lower part by a narthex with doors at both ends, and three two-light windows in the west wall. Above its pent roof are three windows, again of two lights, with cusped heads to the main lights, drawn together by a continuous hood-mould. The gable has two vesicas with tracery and, between them, a cross in relief, a strange conceit.

The south wall of the church has bays in the aisle divided by buttresses, each with two single lights, while the clerestory has paired two-light traceried windows exactly like (but slightly smaller than) the windows in the west wall. At the east end of the aisle is a porch and beyond rises the organ chamber, given externally the aspect of a transept, the gable crowned by a chimney. The gabled wall has two lancets and also a vesica.

The chancel, under the same roof as the nave, has angle buttresses at the east end and a tall three-light window with Geometrical tracery in the south wall. The east window is set very high in the wall but is nevertheless ample in size, of three parts, arranged in the rhythm two three-two, and again with Geometrical tracery.

The north side of the church is quite different, since here may be seen the modest church which Street built for the small population of 1868. The west end has a wide five-light window, and Pearson's north aisle has emobud three two-light windows with quatrefoils as tracery (the attribution to Pearson would be difficult to recognize if one had not been told). Further east are two cross-gabled bays which formed vestries, each with windows of varying sizes under the gables. A new door has been contrived in the wall of the choir vestry. Between this and the chancel of Street's church is a small priest's vestry, and the east wall of the chancel itself has a three-light window of a strength quite foreign to Blomfield's work, the tracery of bold quatrefoils and a sexfoil. 

The nave of Street's church is separated from Blomfield's nave by an arcade which is now filled by retractable partitions and thus forms a parish hall. The chancel, separated by a flimsy wooden screen, is furnished with armchairs as an ante-room to the church. The only part of the Street church to survive this treatment intact is the roof of the nave, a typically inventive structure in which alternate bays have differing designs of beams. It is slightly awkward that, while the roof is in six bays, the north aisle has a four-bay arcade, and the arcade to Blomfield's nave has three bays. The arches to the north aisle, on actagonal piers with moulded capitals, are so wide as to be almost semi-circular.

Blomfield's church is entered through a door from the chancel of the Street church, and has also been much re-arranged. The south aisle has deep been converted into choir and clergy vestries, while the west narthex has been divided off to form a parish office. The colours of the partitions are instantly self-proclaiming (orange, black and yellow) . The three arches which formerly opened into the nave from the narthex are graded, for the central being much wider than the flanking pair, which are very small and narrow. The several windows above give much light to the nave.

Nave and chancel are under one roof, the difference being marked by the fact that the nave has an open timber roof while the chancel is boarded to give the effect of a barrel vault. On the south side of the chancel is the organ above an arcade of three trefoil arches and a rich band of foliage.

The chancel is large and light, with tall windows on each side which shed much light. The central three lights of the east window have stained glass representing the Crucifixion while the outer pairs of lights are clear. The whole design is embraced within a wide round-headed arch.