Church Heritage Record 622242

Nave with passage aisles and north and south porches; transepts with spirelet over crossing; chancel with chapels each side, vestry to north.

The most notable characteristic of the church is the heavy buttressing all round. At the west end, tall buttresses project to the north and south, extending the width of the wall. Moreover, there are buttresses at right-angles to the wall which enclose the pair of large lancets which light the nave. All the buttresses are set-off at least once and the wall is articulated with stringcourses. The tie-rods on the wall cross the windows, and are painted red to blend with the brickwork. There is a Celtic cross on the gable. Below the windows is a plaque which is a War Memorial of 1945. The side walls of the nave are similar to each other there being three wide bays and ono narrow bay of the mare visible from the exterior. The narrow bay has the porch each side, that on the south evidently being the main entrance to the church for it is larger and more decorated, having a hipped roof. At clerestorcy level there is no space for a window above the porch on this side, and none exists on the other, although it would be possible. For the rest of the lateral walls, the aisles have tiny windows, one to each bay, the main light for the nave coming from the large west windows and the pairs of wide lancets at clorestorey level. Flat buttresses at this stage which divide the bays are in the same plane as the low parapet which gives the impression that the windows are set in slightly recessed panels. Further east, the transepts and the chancel chapels project the same distance from the body of the church and are cross-gabled with gables at equal height, which gives externally an unusual aspect to this part of the church. The transepts each have a lancet window in the west side, and a two-light window in the gabled wall. The south chapel has a similar two-light window, set within a relieving arch, but the north has only a rose high in the gable, presumably because this is the organ chamber. The stair to the bell-tower is contained in a buttress-like projection east of the south chancel chapel. The east wall of the church is a strong design divided into three parts by stringcoursee and flanked by angle buttresses each having several set-offs. The lowest section of wall is entirely blank and featureless. The middle part has three stepped lancets and the gable has a circular light for the roof-space. The low, double-gabled vestry projects on the north side; there is no window in the north wall of the chancel, and one lancet in the south. Above the crossing of the church rises the unusual bell-cote which is a brick gabled cote running across the church having a traceried louvred opening in each end and a shingled roof. From this rises the slender octagonal shingled fleche.

The interior of the church is large and well-lit, the result of the big windows which emphasize the height and, having for the most part clear glass, admit much light. In the nave, the stained glass is limited to the deeply-recessed tiny windows in the passage aisles which have single figures in each. The aisles are passages, no more, and communicate with the nave through double chamfered arches which have no capitals, the outer moulding continuing down to the floor and the inner one dying at the respond. The pillars carrying the arches arc plain, of rectangular section with chamfered corners. Above the arches mesa small cornice emphasized by the heating pipes, and from here rise the deep splays in which are sot the lancet windows. There is one window to each splay, but the openings themselves are paired within each bay, by being closer together alternatelyrather than by any structural link. The design is slightly awkward in that the arches of the arcade are evenly spaced, but the windows being thus arranged do not sit squarely above the comparative member in the lower part of the nave. The theme of the deeply splayed recess for the windows is echoed in the west wall where the recess reaches from floor to roof, the lower part allowing for the font, and the upper having in it the two lancets which make such an impression on the outside aspect of the church. The material of the nave is all brick except for a very small number of parts such as the plinths on which the pillars of the arcades stand, and for the floors of the passage aisles (the rest being wood covered with linoleum). The wooden floor undulates considerably as a result of the subsidence which causes problems throughout the church, and the lines of pews also bear witness of this. The roof of the nave is a barrel vault, sitting rather oddly above the gothic-derived lower parts of the nave. It has cross-beams with turned balusters as trusses at each end. The crossing of the church is built of brick, no stone being employed here at all. At each corner, there are clusters of attached pillars which support the four arches, all of equal width. The transepts themselves are rather plain by comparison, and empty. From them arches open into the chancel chapels which are now not used as such. That on the north is the organ chamber, but is by no means filled with the instrument. The plans for the church are in the vestry, and it was evidently intended that it should follow a fairly high church tradition, in which case the transepts would find a use as chapels; the perspective view of the interior shows a grand organ case in the north chancel chapel which either was never built or else has disappeared now, for the present organ has a case which can only be described as mean, with little woodwork and silvered pipos. The chapel to the south of the chancel is now used as a vestry. The chancel is vaulted throughout. It is of two bays and is entirely constructed of brick. The vault is quadripartite rib vaulting, and gives a grand impression. The western arches open into the side projections, the light coming from the south window and the east window which is three stepped lancets filled with the only large-scale stained glass in the church, rather pre-Raphaelitish in style and colourful. These windows are more ornate than others in the church, having attached columns between and outside each which binds the three into a uniform composition. The floor has agreeable red quarries, and there is a simple aumbry of quality built in on the south side.