Church Heritage Record 608542

7-bay nave and chancel with narrow aisles under one roof. North and south porches at west end. Small hexagonal projection at west end forming the baptistery. Octagonal apsidal sanctuary at east end. Choir and priest vestries attached to south-east corner. Boiler room beneath east end of north aisle.

[Approximate] Nave 17m (56ft) long x 6.5m (21ft) wide, aisles 3m (10ft) wide, chancel 10m (33ft) long.

Harwich Harbour is a natural harbour where the estuaries of the River Stour and the River Orwell meet. There is evidence for a Roman camp at Harwich and ships were built there by the 15th century. By the 17th century links had already been established with the Netherlands.

Parkeston Quay, now Harwich International port, was built by the Great Eastern Railway (GER) on reclaimed marshland and opened in 1883. A railway opened here on the Harwich branch line in 1882. The area was named after the GER chairman, Charles Parkes. Terrace housing was built around the port to house railway employees and a small village grew. There was no church until a tin tabernacle mission church, St Gabriel, was constructed in 1887 on a site owned by the GER. The building was used as a hall following the construction of the new church, St Paul, on a different site and was demolished in 1973.

There were many years of fundraising and discussion of plans for the new church. An application to ICBS in 1910 by JE & JP Cutts was rejected, but a second application in 1914 was approved. The architect, E D Hoyland, designed other similar churches around the same time. The foundation stone was laid at the west end of the existing building on 2 May 1914. The church was dedicated on 31 October 1914. WWI had broken out during its construction.

During WWI the port became the base for several Royal Navy submarine flotillas; four submarines sank between 1916 and 1917 outside the harbour. It again functioned as an important naval base during WWII. Today it is a major international passenger ferry terminal and its historic links with the Netherlands continue.

The archaeological potential of the site is low. There are no known designations relating to the ecology of the plot though the site is within the Essex Coast environmentally sensitive area.

St Paul's is constructed of cream coloured glazed terracotta, or faience, blocks laid on top of a brick plinth which is visible at the east end due to the levels of the site. A consecration stone is placed within the wall at the west end.

Low eaves at the west end and along the north and south elevations give the church a squat appearance on approach from the west. High eaves around the projecting apsidal chancel give the effect of greater height anticipating the interior scale. A single roof extends across the main body of the church, hipped at the west end and with three rectangular, wood-framed dormers. Another dormer breaks through the north and south roof slopes towards the east end. A separate gabled roof covers the vestry which breaks away from the main footprint of the building to the south-east. An apsidal baptistery projects from the west end with flat roofed porches to either side. A timber-framed bell-cote, containing a single bell, rises above the west end. A copper clad cross sits above the east end. Lancet windows are grouped in twos and threes in the north and south walls, with those to the south boarded. Buttresses are placed between each set of windows.

Principle entry to the church is through the south-west porch, where there is a single shallow step up. The walls are constructed from glazed terracotta, a continuation from the exterior. The mullions and door surrounds are also formed from the same material, and above the doorways, the blocks are moulded so as to form an interlocked effect.

The surprisingly spacious interior has an impressive seven-bay timber (pine?) frame. On closer inspection this seems to be a scissor-brace with additional timbers to create the effect of a crown-post structure with pendants. The roof is supported on timber posts where usually you would have piers. In the narrow aisles, the main trusses come down to the walls to rest on terracotta corbels and transverse arches, formed like cruck-frames, cross the aisles at each bay. Beyond the timber, the ceiling is raftered and boarded. The nave fills four of the bays with the choir and chancel to the east and a baptistery to the west. The remains of the original heating/ventilation system can be discerned in the apex of the roof structure.Original wrought-iron brackets are fixed to the main posts of the timber-frame reaching out into the nave with modern light fittings. Additional bell-like light fittings hang in the aisles.

The floor is a level, suspended, softwood, boarded floor with carpet laid along the aisles. Simple open-backed pine benches seat the nave and wood chairs are situated in the aisles. A low shelf with children’s chairs is located in the north-west corner. At the centre of the west end, within the apsidal projection, is the font, raised on a step and cordoned off from the remainder of the nave. The floor around it is tiled in red, yellow and black quarry tiles.

In the east of the nave are external doors, with glazed panels, in the north and south walls. Waist-height panelling forms a low screen extending out from the choir enclosing the north-east corner which contains the organ. To the south side is an altar which functions as a war memorial at the east end of the south aisle. Along the south aisle is a collection of maritime memorabilia displayed on the walls and from the ceiling.

There is a single step up from the nave into the choir which has a woodblock herringbone floor with choir stalls to north and south. A curtain behind the stalls screens the organ to the north and a passage into the vestry to the south.

The sanctuary is raised by another step on which the altar is raised on a wooden platform (a small plaque dates it to 1984). The floor is of terrazzo and the three sides of the projecting apse are panelled to the height of the window-sills with a carved wood reredos behind the altar. The panelling is inscribed 1963. Three lancet lights pierce each facet.