Church Heritage Record id18591

The church is cruciform with a nave of five bays, the easternmost being wider than the others and opening into transepts. Both north and south transepts have short aisles on the east and west sides, those to the north transept being apsidal. That on the west of the north transept was intended as a baptistery but is now a meeting room and that on the east is a vestry with the organ standing on a gallery in the southern part, opening through an arch into the chancel. The vicar's vestry lies to the east of this. There is no tower or bell-cote.

The church was designed by Walter L. Bozzi Granville, brother of the first Vicar; the design was shown at the Royal Academy in 1849, the foundation stone was laid on 18 June 1853 and the church was consecrated on 17 October 1854. The cost was £4,695. The north transept was altered by Arthur Tooth, whose architect was F. Rogers. A vestry was added in 1897 to the designs of W. Gilbee Scott.

The church is approached from the north, and presents initially one of its least satisfactory aspects. This consists of two apsidal projections each side of an unfinished gable. It is at first difficult to relate these forms to a cruciform building, but in fact the gable is that of the north transept and the apses house the baptistery and sacristy which were added by Father Tooth. Each face of the apses has a pair of lancets with a small quatrefoil above, a motif repeated each side of the door which opens into a low narthex below the gable. The gable itself is evidently one bay shorter than was intended and ends with an arch filled with rendered brick.

To the right is the nave, with three-light Decorated windows in each bay of the aisles, separated by buttresses, and unduly small two-light windows in each by of the clerestory above, the wall here being entirely plain and undivided. The south flank of the nave is similar and the south transept was completed, with a large tracery window in the gable and three-light windows in the south gables of the transept aisles. The west front of the nave has tall two-light windows in the aisles walls and a lavish doorway with two separate two centred arches under a central trumeau (intended for carving but never completed) with three pairs of shafts each side with foliated capitals and a hoodmould terminating in spirited attempts to depict the heads of Green Men or woodwoses.

The chancel has a wide, awkwardly shaped gable with a seven-light window in the east wall and a two-light window in the south wall of the sanctuary. Otherwise the chancel is mostly concealed by the later vestry on the north and by the aisle of the transept on the south. Throughout the exterior of the church the carved detail (where executed) is harsh and, in the case of the corbel table to the aisles and clerestory, peculiar. Part of the reason for the awkwardness of the church, and its half-finished appearance, is the interrupted history of the building since the first incumbent who paid for most of the work was un unbusinesslike man who was nearly bankrupted by the exercise.

As a result of the peculiar plan the interior is broad and spreading, with vistas into the south transept and its aisles. The piers of the arcades to the nave and south transept are quatrefoil in plan, with water-holding mouldings round the bases and mouldings round the capitals, the bases standing on diamond-shaped plinths. The piers at the corners of the 'crossing' are clusters of eight shafts rather than four, the intermediate ones keeled and the others found. The floors are of red and black quarries in the alleys and wood blocks under the pews. The arches to the nave are pointed, with chamfered edges, but those to the aisles of the south transepts are depressed. The walls are painted cream with some mouldings picked out in blue. In the eastern bay of the north aisle two arches open into the west aisle of the north transept, intended by Tooth as a baptistery but now used as a meeting room. The east aisle of the transept is a choir vestry approached through an oak screen above which stands the organ. The roof in the nave is of thin construction with arch braces at each bay and intermediately, resting in each case on stone corbels carved with foliage.

The chancel arch is broad and tall, supported at each side on stone corbels against shafted piers which are carved as angels. The arch is crossed by an oak screen and beyond it the chancel is of two bays, one for the choir and one for the sanctuary. The former has an arch on the north containing the organ above the vestry and an arch on the south opening into the east aisle of the south transept. The eastern of the two bays has a small doorway on the north communicating with the clergy vestry within the altar rails and on the south side four arches on small colonettes which house the three sedilia and a piscina. Against the east wall is a reredos of ceramic panels set within a stone frame and there are stone arches on each side. The upper part of the reredos cuts into the sill of the east window, a large design of seven lights with geometric tracery enclosed by shafts and a moulded arch. There is a further window in the south wall of the sanctuary and both bays of the chancel are vaulted with moulded ribs arranged in a quadripartite design springing from carved corbels in each corner and midway along the north and south walls and with foliate bosses, the eastern one showing the chalice and host.