Summary
A medieval parish church, altered and extended in the C19 with contributions by George Gilbert Scott Junior and George Frederick Bodley.
Reasons for Designation
The Church of St Paul, Bedford, a medieval parish church, altered and extended in the C19 with contributions by George Gilbert Scott Junior and George Frederick Bodley, is listed at Grade I for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as an unusual example of a hall church;
* for its accumulation of phases, with a predominant Perpendicular Gothic form;
* as one of the foremost architectural landmarks of the borough of Bedford.
Historic interest:
* for the site's continuous history as a Christian place of worship for over a millenium;
* as a building with substantial portions of medieval fabric, the earliest dating from the early C13 and with major elements built during the C15;
* for physical relationship of the building's fabric to that of Bedford Castle during the reigns of King John and Henry III;
* for the significant international broadcasting role played by the church during the Second World War.
Group value:
* for the important civic character of the group created by its proximity to the other major municipal structures on St Paul's Square: the Grade II* listed Shire Hall, Grade II listed Town Hall & Town Hall Extension, Grade II listed Corn Exchange, and Grade I listed statue of John Howard;
* for the architectural and functional relationship it shares with the Grade II listed railings, gates and water fountain that defines the churchyard boundary.
History
There has been a church in Bedford, probably in this location, since the C8. Several waves of destruction caused a series of rebuildings as the Danes in the C11 and the Anarchy of the C12 took their toll on the church. In the mid-C12 the management of the church was given to a newly established priory of Augustinian Canons at Newnham. In the First Barons’ War (1215) Bedford Castle was captured by Falkes de Bréauté for King John and strengthened using stone from St Paul’s church. Nine years later, de Bréauté now opposed Henry III and the castle was razed; the stone from the castle was then used to rebuild the church. The earliest identifiable fabric in the church today dates from the post-1224 reconstruction; the portal inside the south porch is the largest feature to survive from this period.
The south aisle arcade is likely to date from the C14, as do the (rebuilt 1865-1868) crossing arches. However, the bulk of the building’s architectural form dates from a comprehensive phase of reconstruction in the C15.
The C15 church had the proportions of a double-nave building, with the nave and south aisle of roughly equal height and width, and no corresponding north aisle. It was designed in a Perpendicular Gothic style. The roof was raised to accommodate new clerestories, porches were added, and in the early C15 the Trinity Chapel was constructed on the south side of the chancel. This large chantry chapel was built for two merchant guilds, the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, and Corpus Christi. In the Reformation (1540) the chantry ceased to function and the chapel was used instead as a court for the Archdeacon of Bedford. From 1508 onwards St Paul’s began to function as an independent parish church, separate from the governance of Newnham Priory, which was dissolved in 1541.
John Wesley preached his ‘Great Assize’ sermon from the pulpit here in 1758.
A long period of ‘restoration’, renewal, extension and alteration took place at St Paul’s from the 1830s through to the early C20. The north transept and steeple were rebuilt in 1865-1868 by R Palgrave on the advice of G E Street. The chancel arcades, chancel roof, east window, new vestry and organ chamber were all reworked by George Gilbert Scott Junior in 1878-1880. Scott Junior returned in 1884, adding the north aisle and creating in the process a ‘hall church’ plan; at the same time he rebuilt the C15 north porch on the new building line. In 1898-1899 G F Bodley created a further vestry, with an annex created in front of the north transept in 1924.
During the Second World War much of the BBC was relocated to Bedford. The Trinity Chapel of St Paul’s church was used by the religious affairs department to broadcast the Daily Service nationally and internationally, its location was identified as ‘Somewhere in England’ in over 1,000 broadcasts. This history was commemorated in 2009 with an inscription in the Trinity Chapel floor by Lida Kindersley.
The West Gallery was created in 1982 to the designs of Victor Farrar and incorporates kitchen, WC and ancillary spaces below. It is the third such gallery to have been created in the church.
There were medieval statues of St Peter and St Paul in the canopied aedicules of the south porch until their removal and storage sometime in the 1980s. They were conserved as part of a Church Buildings Council grant scheme in 2015, but have not been reinstated at the church. A faculty was granted in 2022 for the relocation of the statues to the interior of the north porch, as part of refurbishment of that porch.
Details
A medieval parish church, altered and extended in the C19 with contributions by George Gilbert Scott Junior and George Frederick Bodley.
MATERIALS: the church is constructed of limestone and the roofs are principally covered in lead.
PLAN: the church is traditionally oriented, pointing to the east, and has a crossing tower with a spire, an aisled chancel, north and south transepts, and a ‘hall church’ nave (meaning the north and south aisles are the same height as the central body of the nave, creating a spatially uniform area).
EXTERIOR: the church stands within a churchyard at the focal point of a large square. It is faced in coursed rubble with freestone ashlar dressings and has crenelated parapets. The octagonal spire has three stages of lucarnes, and rises from a square tower with louvred openings (twin pairs of lancets) around the bell chamber and a round clockface on each side.
The nave is five bays long and three bays wide, of a uniform height with clerestorey windows above taller aisle windows (all four-centred arches with Perpendicular tracery). The west front has large, more refined tracery in its three raised windows, and a central portal (C19) in an Early English style with a ribbed canopy and figures of SS Peter and Paul. The C15 south porch is two storeys high and has angled buttresses. It has square hoodmoulds around the door and flanking windows and ground floor. The upper storey has blocked windows on the sides, and a three-light traceried window facing south with canopied aedicules on each side. Within the south porch, now enclosed, is the C13 south portal. The north side of the nave has one larger window in a two-centred arch. The north porch (C15, rebuilt in 1884) is single storey and has a canopied aedicule with a figure of a saint above an open four-centred archway.
The C19 north transept has a 1924 vestry annex projecting from its base, faced in ashlar stonework with a flat parapet. A large window of Perpendicular Gothic tracery rises in two stages to the height of the nave clerestorey. There is a stair turret on the left hand side. The south transept mirrors the traceried window of the north, without the ground floor projection or the stair turret.
At the east end, the chancel rises above and extends beyond the Trinity Chapel on the south side, and the chapels and vestries on the north. The Trinity Chapel is four bays long and has large three-light windows with Perpendicular tracery; there is a priest’s door in the second bay. The east elevation of the Trinity Chapel has a four-light window. The chancel itself has a five bay clerestorey on the south side and four bays on the north (one bay is taken up by a stair turret); three-light windows flank the side elevations of the high altar, and the east wall has a large six-light window with complex Perpendicular tracery. The whole of the north side of the chancel was created in the C19: the vestries and organ chamber which rise up to the base of the clerestorey are the work of George Gilbert Scott Junior, and the lower vestry block that projects beyond the line of the transept was designed by G. F. Bodley in 1898-9, with latter with a flat roof and ashlar stonework.
INTERIOR: the nave is formed of three aisles all of the same height, creating a ‘hall church’ interior. The roof is supported by figure corbels, each with a strange feathery bird (C19 ones are smaller than the surviving C15 elements). Other bosses and gilded figures populate the nave roof, running parallel with the principal members. The south arcade dates to the C14 and has been replicated with different bases on the north side. The south aisle has a relocated pulpit, designed 1871 by John Day. The central aisle has a Purbeck marble floor slab robbed of its original memorial brasses. At the crossing arch is a finely carved clunch stone pulpit with delicate, blind tracery and an iron stair; this was originally part of an early-C16 reredos, repurposed in 1680 to serve as a pulpit (Wesley’s sermon was delivered from here). The font in the north aisle has a C14 base with a C19 bowl and 1936 conical cover (by J P White). At the west of the nave is a large west gallery (1982) with seating above and ancillary spaces below; it also forms an internal west porch with glass doors engraved by David Pearce and Meinrad Carighead.
The crossing has a coffered ceiling decorated with the Royal Arms. The north transept is dedicated to the Bedfordshire Regiment. The south transept has the mayor’s stall, created in 1872 by J T Wing. A Rood Screen crosses the chancel arch, complete with carvings of the Rood, the Virgin Mary, St John the Evangelist, and two angels in prayer, it was designed by G F Bodley in 1905; the Rood beam is supported by a ribbed canopy and an arcade of delicate tracery; at its base are painted panels and scrolling wrought iron gates. Bodley’s screen replaced a Perpendicular gothic screen that was relocated to the Trinity Chapel. A screen separating the Trinity Chapel from the chancel includes an open stair to an organ loft, probably designed by Albert Richardson.
The chancel has chequerboard marble flooring, and a high altar raised seven steps above the choir. The stalls are a mixture of Medieval and Victorian carpentry; some early C15 misericords survive, including a depiction of the siege of Bedford Castle; graffiti in the attached desk includes carved game boards and the date AD1628. Bodley’s reordering introduced a choir of angels below the clerestorey. The C19 roof is highly decorated over the sanctuary. An engaged piscina survives alongside a medieval sedilia on the south side of the high altar.
The Trinity Chapel also has an engaged piscina to the south of the altar. Lida Kindersley’s 2009 inscription on the floor forms concentric waves around a cross, reading: FROM THIS CHAPEL 1941-1945 IN THE DARKNESS OF WAR / THE BBC BROADCAST THE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE / NATION SHALL SPEAK PEACE UNTO NATION / THEY SHALL BEAT THEIR SWORDS INTO PLOUGHSHARES / HOPE THROUGH RECONCILIATION / FORGIVENESS THROUGH UNDERSTANDING / PEACE.
The church has a large number of stained glass windows by different artists, all dating from the 1870s or later. They include major figures such as Shrigley and Hunt, Clayton and Bell, Hardman and Co, Burlison and Grylls, A E Tombleson (for C E Kempe), and Paul Woodroffe. The latest window, dedicated to the Harpur Trust, was designed in 1976 by Brian Thomas.
The church is rich in memorials, the earliest being the robbed memorial brass of Simon de Beauchamp (d 1208); had this survived it may have been the earliest such brass in England. The memorial brass to Sir William Harpur (d 1573) and his wife Margaret, survives in the Trinity Chapel. A second monument to Sir William was erected in 1768 on the north side of the Trinity Chapel altar, sculpted by Benjamin Palmer it has a black marble obelisk, a white sarcophagus and a projecting chest all suspended directly from the wall. On the south side of the chancel is a smiling portrait bust of Andrew Denys (d 1633), rector of St John’s church, standing at a pulpit in a classical aperture. Various other plaques and tablets from the C17-C19 can be found around the church.
