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Summary

Description

George Frederick Bodley: halls 1857, nave 1865-8, chancel 1874. An important landmark in the Gothic revival. Simple Early English exterior of coursed rubble with ashlar dressings and steep slate roofs.

W GABLE: large 4-light intersecting cusp traceried window, buttresses flush with gable, apex niche and celtic cross finial. Lean-to narthex porch added 1874. Simple pointed arched doors to N and S approached by gabletted gatepiers. 2 cusped 2-light windows to W.

SIDE ELEVATIONS: heavily buttressed 7-bay nave with lean-to windowless aisle. 6 pointed Y-traceried cusped clerestory windows. Chancel lower than nave, 3 large 3-light windows with ogee hoodmould between slim buttresses to N elevation, M-roofed chapel and lean-to sacristy to S, buttressed, with cusped mullioned windows and a pointed arched door.

HALL: 2-storey W gable; ground floor 2 single lights, a bipartite and a door, 4 light mullioned and transomed window over, centre lights cusped. Rose window within relieving arch, blind slit in gable head. Simple square bellcote. Porch and stairs set back between halls and church, chamfered arched entrance beneath armorial of Bishop of Brechin. Quatrefoil above. Plain single lights and bipartites to S.

E GABLE: 2 bipartites and rose within relieving arches. Wrought-iron cross finial stack. New classrooms inserted between hall and church in 1870s, lean-to roof. Slate roofs, fish-scale and half piended over porch.

INTERIOR: exceptionally complete decoration directed by Bodley, overall stencilling effected by his own firm Burlison and Grylls. Tall nave and narrow lean-to aisles within buttresses. Octagonal ashlar piers to nave arcade. Collar-braced crown-post roof. A rich turquoise and green diaper stencil to arcade spandrels, lighter stencilling above and in

roof-space. Richer reds and greens in the chancel arch and chancel. Magnificent panelled and painted reredos fills whole of E wall: Christ crucified and 18 painted copper panels of the Apostles, Angels, the Virgin and St John. Fresco of the Annunciation above. Wagon roof stencilled and with gilded lead sunbursts towards the altar. Lady

Chapel open scissor-brace roof, panelled at E end. Gilded wrought-iron screens in chancel and chapel arches. High quality furnishings by Watts and Co, founded by Bodley: canted sacrament house with ornate brass hinges, organ by Wadsworth and Maskell in late Gothic case by Canon F H

Sutton in association with Bodley, simple timber choir stalls and sedilia. Glass painted in 15th century manner by Burlison and Grylls, except wheel window in W gable of Lady Chapel, transferred from school, by Clayton and Bell. Simple school and hall interiors. The upper floor was used for worship until 1868.

Statement of Special Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. An early working- out of Pre-Raphaelite principles as applied to architecture and a landmark in Bodley's career. It spans his transition from French to English Gothic and its flat surfaces covered with stencilling are more refined than Pugin's and influenced Morris.

Built for the ecclesiological Bishop Forbes and Rev James Nicholson as a mission to the Hilltown. Paintwork retouched 1907 and 1936, restored 1972 by J and T Harvey, Rab Snowden and Colin McWilliam.

References

Bibliography

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