Church Heritage Record 623535

Five-bay nave with aisles, west porches and baptistery and two bay transepts. Chancel with shallow aisles north and south, Lady Chapel on the north with gallery above the aisle and choir and clergy vestries on the south with an organ chamber above the former.

The church was designed by Fellowes Prynne and the foundation stone was laid by Lord Ashcombe on 14 October 1911, the finished building being consecrated by the Bishop of London on 12 April 1913. The church was the sixth to be built within the old parish of Harrow since 1845 and arose from a meeting which inaugurated the Harrow Church Extension Scheme on 30 May 1904. That year a church room was built at Sudbury and early in 1906 the present site had been bought at a total cost (after an additional piece of ground had been added), of £1,600 to which the Bishop of London's Fund contributed £440. Here a hall was built in 1907 at a cost of £1,039; it was made of "Frazzi", a kind of durable terracotta, and it still exists. On 27 October 1910 Fellowes Prynne was appointed architect for the permanent church. George Halford Fellowes Prynne was born in 1853, the son of the Revd. G.R. Prynne, Vicar of St. Andrew's Plymouth, and became a pupil of Windeyer of Toronto and G.E. Street. He was almost exclusively a church architect and in his later works he favoured the late Decorated style used by Bodley, although his interpretation of it was rather less refined. His first work was to rebuild the greater part of St. Peter, Plymouth, for his father. He was fond of providing a large stone chancel screen based on the examples at Stebbing and Great Bardfield, Essex, and his churches are redolent of late Victorian and Edwardian opulence, some of them appropriately enough being in south coast watering places such as Bognor (St. Wilfrid), Bournemouth (St. Alban) and Budleigh Salterton. He also designed churches at Plymouth (St. Peter); West Dulwich (All Saints); Roehampton; Ealing (St. Saviour, destroyed); All Saints Elland; St. John, Sidcup; St. Peter, Ilfracombe; St. Peter, Whitstable; St. Mark, Purley; St. Peter, Bushey Heath; St. Nicholas, Taplow; and St. Michael, Beaconsfield. His design for St. Peter, Harrow, allowed for the body of the church to be built in one campaign (at an estimated cost of £10,200) with the possibility of a tower and spire being added later. This was never achieved.

The church, though large, has no tower (although one was intended which would have risen from the north side of the nave to a considerable height, of three stages with a grand doorway at the foot and a tall belfry stage capped by a castellated parapet and surmounted by a slender lead-covered spire). As a result it makes little impact upon its surroundings except in the immediate vicinity. Its bulk is emphasised by a long roof ridge at the same level over nave and chancel, though broken above the chancel arch by a small bell-cote set on a stone gable. The nave has three aisled bays and then double trensepts, a favourite design of this architect. The three aisle bays have rectangular late Decorated windows with frilly tracery set under segmental relieving arches, with ogee gablets on the purely decorative buttresses between the bays. The transepts have two cross-gables and tall three-light windows in the gabled walls also set under relieving arches, but more sharply pointed. The angles have clasping buttresses. Eastwards again, the chapel on the north of two bays and the two storeyed vestry and organ chamber on the south have windows similar to those in the aisles, and there are turrets attached to both these parts of the church giving access in the former case to a gallery above the north chancel aisle, and in the latter to the organ chamber (which has a hipped roof). The chancel hardly projects further east, but there is space for a tall two-light window in the north and south walls of the sanctuary and the five-light east window is set high above the ground (to allow space for a large reredos within) and the area of blind wall below is broken only by a cross recessed within a roundel.

The west end of the church has a narrow polygonal apse for the baptistery in the middle with slender windows in the three western faces set between tall buttresses; the roof, which rises within a plainly moulded parapet, has the refined detail of serpentine strips of lead leading down from the central finial. The west wall of the nave has tall, two-light windows each side of the baptistery and a eight petalled rose window above. At the foot are polygonal porches each side of the baptistery. There is no clerestory to the nave.

The interior is solemn and dignificd although here too the tension slackens in some places. The whole tonality is brown, from the alternating bands of fawn and buff stone of the nave pillars and the buff plaster on the walls to the greenish-brown glass in the windows, which still preservestheir original flowing Arts and Crafts leading, the wood block floors and panelled roofs. The pillars , which are panelled in oak , up to a dado as sometimes was done at this period, are diamond shaped on plan with broadening bases and triple chamfers round the arches which emerge from the masonry without capitals. The arch into the baptistery at the west is similar, and this area is made very dark by stained glass in the windows. At each side are doorways to the porches under segmental arches and above are the tall windows, each with a pierced parapet along the sill to hide a radiator. The rose window is set nearer the upper than the lower edge of its encircling recess. The wood block floor slopes gently from west to east and the western part of the nave is screened off. The roof of the nave is a continuous timber vault above coving on each side. The aisles are crossed at each bay by stone arches, with broader half arches opening into the transepts.

The chancel arch is similar to the arches of the arcades, with responds breaking into three chamfers round the arch itself. At this point there are two steps and a low stone screen with the large pulpit prominent on the left and the brass eagle lectern on the right. The floor of the chancel is paved with grey and white marble and diamonds of black marble. Further east in the sanctuary the stone steps lead to more elaborate floors with paviours of coloured marbles. There are nine shallow steps altogether between the nave floor and the high altar. On the north and south are arcades opening into short aisles specifically provided for the congregation returning from communion, and within the sanctuary there are two aumbries with stout oak doors and good simple ironwork and brass handles (this is true of all the doors in the church no expense was spared). In the south wall of the sanctuary are sedilia under a broad segmental arch with square fleurons in a hollow moulding and a piscina to the east under a continuation of the arch. This has a quatrefoil drain and a small shelf within a cinquefoiled arch. The stops of the hoodmould are carved as a bunch of grapes and a shield with the keys of St. Peter. The windows above again have pierced parapets on the sills concealing radiators. The east window is set high to provide space for a reredos but the curtains which were provided temporarily are still in position. The roof of the chancel is similar to that of the nave, but without the subsidiary coving because it is slightly narrower; it is divided into two bays by a timber arch with a soffit decorated with pierced quatrefoils. A wide arch on the north opens into a gallery at first-floor level with three small two-light windows (paired trefoils and quatrefoils) in the north wall. The corresponding arch on the south is filled by the organ with pipes arranged as though a case was intended. 

Under the gallery on the north the small passage aisle communicates with the Lady Chapel by a two-bay arcade carried on responds and a central round pillar which are shallowly carved with spirals as at Ilfracombe and Beaconsfield. The north hood mould has stops carved as a rose and a lily in honour of Our Lady. The floor is paved with large tesserae and there is a small reredos by Fellowes Prynne. Dark stained glass makes the chapel very gloomy and the sacrament is reserved here. An arch opens into the north transept so that it may, if necessary, be used as the congregational area for smaller services.