CHURCH OF OUR MOST HOLY REDEEMER, CLERGY HOUSE, CAMPANILE AND PARISH HALL

Details

TQ3182SW 635-1/73/387

ISLINGTON, EXMOUTH MARKET (South side), Church of our most Holy Redeemer, Clergy House, campanile & parish hall

(Formerly Listed as: EXMOUTH MARKET (South side) Church of the Holy Redeemer)

29/12/50

GV II*

Church with attached clergy house, campanile, and parish hall. 1887-1888, by John Dando Sedding completed by Henry Wilson 1892-1895. Clergy House, parish hall, campanile, and Lady Chapel 1894-1906. Chapel of All Souls, 1921 by Wilson. Sculptural carving to interior by F W Pomeroy, sculptor. Buff stock brick set in English bond with finely cut rubbed red brick and stone bands and dressings, and red-tile dressings; various Welsh-slate roofs: gabled roof with projecting eaves to church, half-hipped roof to clergy house, gable facing to parish hall and hipped roof with projecting eaves to campanile. Free cross-plan with narrow side aisles and diminutive transepts; interior lengthened by Wilson with Lady Chapel extending eastward behind Baldacchino. Pure Italian Renaissance style. Symmetrical front facade to church with round-arched doorway set into centre of solid brick wall at ground level: doorway with wooden panelled double doors with rectangular overlights flanked by pairs of stone pilasters (with red brick panels) carrying entablature and surmounted by moulded-stone extrados to finely-cut rubbed red-brick tympanum with brick-panelled intrados. Stone cornice at midpoint up front elevation with inscribed freize in giant letters reading: 'CHRISTO LIBERATOR'. Red brick and stone banding to 1st stage: wheel window to centre with intricate curved and radial leaded glazing bars and moulded stone surround. Giant pediment above with wide projecting bracketed eaves; finely cut low-relief carving to tympanum. Continuation of banded decoration (in brick only) to upper stage of left-hand return wall with same wheel window as front; right-hand return wall obscured by campanile but has same detailing. Flanking front facade on left is parish hall, on the right the clergy house with its projecting campanile. Subtle Italian Romanesque style to subsidiary buildings. Parish hall breaks forward slightly: 2 storeys; 1-window range (5 lights with modillions) set in brick recess to centre. Main entrance to small covered porch to right-hand return wall; secondary 1-storey entrance to far left front facade, both with round-arched heads. Features throughout include finely detailed tile extradoses, imposts, decorative tympanum and banding; stone coping above left entrance. Clergy house breaks forward slightly: 4 storeys; 2-window range plus 1-window range to left-hand return wall. Round-arched entrance to return. Sashes (6/6, 4/4, 2/2) with round-arched heads with fine tile extradoses, stone imposts and sill bands; windows to ground and 4th floors with flat arches. Cornice, tile coping to brick parapet. Campanile breaks well-forward to southwest corner: almost square in plan, partially obscured by other buildings; 5 stages; various round-arched coupled openings (except 1st stage single opening only) with sashes to ground, 1st, 2nd and 3rd stages; other stages open; all with finely-cut tiled or brick extradoses, stone imposts and sill bands. INTERIOR: of church: Renaissance style. Colonnades of lavish, giant Corinthian-columns with panelled pedestals carrying unbroken entablature and supporting four groined vaults. Column capitals carved by sculptor F W Pomeroy. Free-standing Baldacchino high altar on pattern of Sto. Spirito in Florence in east end; Sedding's plans for frescoed walls never carried out and are now plain, Wilson responsible for most of existing interior furnishings such as font, 1909, floors, some of marble. Lady Chapel with details by Wilson and Sedding's son. All Soul's Chapel: reredos, presented by Wilson, cast of that in the chapel at Welbeck Abbey (1906). Glass is plain. Stations of Cross by Martin Travers studio and organ from Chapel Royal at Windsor Castle installed in 1889. Attached iron railings to front elevation. History: The church was consecrated in 1888 but never completed as designed in 1887. Sedding died very young in 1891, and the building was completed by Sedding's assistant Henry Wilson. He submitted plans in 1892 which included extending the building eastward behind the Baldacchino; this was done in 1894-1895. An appeal was established in 1901 to pay for the other buildings and they were completed in 1906. This church is of outstanding importance as an example of the late C19 reaction against High Victorian Gothic. Sedding accomplished this by using the pure Italian Renaissance style. In doing so, he not only created a 'monument to the Aestheticism of the late Victorian Anglo-Catholics', but made the church look Roman Catholic. Wilson's work to the church is particularly fine; and his interesting subsidiary buildings (parish-hall, clergy-house, and especially the campanile) flanking the front facade are extremely clever and idiosyncratic. This complex was built in the heart of a significant Italian community. These buildings form a remarkable group. (Buildings of England: Pevsner, N: London: London: 1951-: FINSBURY 114; The Faber Guide to Victorian Churches: London: 1989-: 77; Stamp, G and Amery, C: Victorian Buildings of London 1837-1887: An Illustrated Guide: London: 1982-: 153-154).

Listing NGR: TQ3126482428

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

368887

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Howell, P, Sutton, I, The Faber Guide to Victorian Churches, (1989), 77
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Middlesex, (1951)
Stamp, , Amery, , Victorian Buildings of London 1837-1887 An Illustrated Guide, (1982), 153-154

End of official list entry