Church Heritage Record 619016

Cruciform, with 5-bay aisled nave, transepts, SW tower with broach spire and set-back buttresses, and apsed chancel with symmetrical flanking chapels, that to N converted to a vestry and organ chamber. Clerestory.

Nave 30m (100ft) x 9m (30 ft), chancel 12.5m (40 ft) long.

Archaeology

The potential for below ground archaeology would appear to be low.  The centre of Leicester lies roughly 2 Km to SW and was the site of a major Roman tribal centre and mediaeval county town. There are hence hundreds of SMR entries within 2km of this church, but this does not necessarily reflect the archaeological potential of the site.  The immediate area seems to have been developed in the 1870s, around the time the church was built.  It is likely that prior to that the area was used for agriculture.  Although there is a possibility that there was prehistoric or mediaeval activity in the vicinity other than agriculture, there is no evidence for this.

History

Scott was of course one of the leading Gothic Revival architects, and certainly one of the most famous.  St Saviour’s is the last and largest of the churches he designed in Leicester, the others being the churches of St John, St Andrew and St Matthew.  His influence on Leicester extends even beyond these buildings, for example nearby St Peter’s was designed by his former protégé G E Street. The site and the considerable construction costs for the church and school (£20,000) were a gift of the Revd F G Burnaby, the parish was created in 1878.   The church school was built shortly after Scott’s death to designs by Stockdale Harrison, a Leicester architect. It is a good building of its type and date in its own right. It is now leased by the Council and used as a neighbourhood centre.

The architectural style chosen is basically Transitional, with pointed lancets throughout, but with detailing and a complexity of design and handling which transcends the often derogative “lancet gothic” label, as one might expect from this architect.  Scott has brought all the ancillaries (vestries etc) within the footprint of what would be a perfectly symmetrical building but for the south-west tower, allowing nothing to spoil his vision; this has, however, had the side effect of leaving the church with no facilities, including no running water to this day.

Considerable vertical emphasis to an already tall church is added by the south-west tower with its broach spire of stone, which has 2-light lucarnes at the base and narrow openings higher up. The tower is of three stages and has angle buttresses with weatherings to each string-course. The lower stages are pierced by single lancets, the belfry stage has twin lancet openings.  There is a large doorway in the south face, pointed with two orders of colonettes with Early English capitals, with a wrought-iron canopy above with pendant lamp.

The west gable has a wheel window, below which are five lancets set in intersecting blank arcading enriched with chevron.  Below this again is a west door with a moulded pointed arch of three orders carried on colonettes with waterleaf capitals, all under a shallowly projecting gable.  The entrance is flanked by circular windows with cinquefoils.  The doors have good scrolled ironwork.

The aisles have a single lancet in each bay (including the exposed west face of the north aisle) defined by buttresses of one weathering, the clerestory has triple lancets between strip pilasters, all these with continuous hoodmoulds and cill bands.  There is a brick corbel table under the eaves and a stepped cornice along the gable, a pattern repeated everywhere. 

The single bay projecting transepts have two single lancets with shafted jambs and plain stopped hoodmoulds, separated by a pilaster which continues up through a clerestory of two twin lancets with shafted jambs and chevron around the arches, hoodmoulds as above.  There is a wheel window in the gables above a corbel table, as above. The side walls have a triple lancet as in the nave clerestory, the outer lancet blind.

The chancel is flanked by chapels with single windows in each face in the transepts.  The projecting chancel apse has twin lancets with the same treatment again, but also a clerestory band pierced by a round cinquefoil window in an inset band with flanking colonettes, a most original and effective composition.

Moving inside, there is an enormous sense of space under the high and excellent roof, which is a complex arch-braced construction with tie-beams and collars taken down to carved stone corbels alternating with intermediate scissor-braces in the nave, but with a brick rib-vault over the crossing and sanctuary apse, and an oak vault over the chancel.  These roofs are some of the church’s best features.

Brick is exposed everywhere, the arcade columns also of brick (with the exception of those at the crossing, which are of polished Shap granite), all with carved white stone waterleaf capitals.  The nave, crossing, chancel and sanctuary arches are all pointed and moulded with a continuous hoodmould; the plain corbels to the hood-moulds of the crossing and chancel arches and the sanctuary windows are also picked out in white stone.  

The floors are of red tiles, sinking and warping practically everywhere, with some real troughs and slopes in places.

The north “chapel” is the organ chamber, the pipes exposed to the chancel, and a small vestry.  The south chapel has been enclosed in the 1920s with neo-Georgian wood panelling with round-headed arches and turned into a War Memorial chapel. 

There are three steps to the chancel and one more to the sanctuary, which is paved with encaustic tiles by Godwin set in Geometric patterns.   The sanctuary has an oak sedilia and stone piscina, Early English in style, and oak panelling around the sanctuary walls with carved cornice, dramatically lit by all the windows.