PARISH CHURCH OF ST MARY

PARISH CHURCH OF ST MARY, VICARAGE ROAD

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II*
List Entry Number:: 1121550
Date first listed:: 16-May-1991
List Entry Name:: PARISH CHURCH OF ST MARY
Statutory Address:: PARISH CHURCH OF ST MARY, VICARAGE ROAD

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Date:: 2001-06-30
Reference:: IOE01/05072/36
Rights:: © Mr David G. Smith. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II*
List Entry Number:: 1121550
Date first listed:: 16-May-1991
List Entry Name:: PARISH CHURCH OF ST MARY
Statutory Address 1:: PARISH CHURCH OF ST MARY, VICARAGE ROAD

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: PARISH CHURCH OF ST MARY, VICARAGE ROAD

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Medway (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TQ 73874 69521

Details

STROOD VICARAGE ROAD TQ 76 NW 2/286 Parish Church of St Mary 16.5.91 II*

Parish Church. 1868-9 by Arthur Blomfield. Built and endowed by Mary, widow of John Griffith, Dean of Rochester. Snecked rubble ragstone; Kent tile roof. Yellow brick interior, with red brick dressings. Nave (with W narthex and gallery), N and S aisles, S porch S transept, chancel with N aisle. W front: an original well detailed design. Shallow gabled porch with limestone coping, vesica (containing small figure of Christ in Majesty) to gable wall, 2-centre arched portal with detached shafts. Buttresses to either side, that to the right (s) serving also as a stair turret. Tripartite W window arrangement (2 light window flanked by lancets); projecting statue niche above; complicated buttressing marks the transition between the W wall and polygonal apex belcote, with spirelet. The rest of the exterior is more straightforward: 5-bay nave and 3-bay chancel with clerestory (2-light clerestory windows under hood moulds), paired lancets to aisles. 3 stepped lancets to E end. Interior: nave piers of quatrefoil section with fine stiff-leaf capitals, arches under continuous hood moulds with foliated corbels; poly- chromatic brick work to spandrels and clerestory walls; roof, boarded and canted with paired principals. Elaborate W end arrangement: the 3 W windows deeply recessed under 3 stepped super-ordinate arches the shafts enclosing a gallery (over the narthex) which is pierced by 2:3:2 arches with marble shafts. 2 lancets flank central doorway below legend recording endowment of the church by Mary Griffith, 1869. Chancel, raised by 3 steps, moulded arch of 3 orders on tall shafts and foliated corbels. Side elevations treated differently: to the N, 2-bay arcade of richly moulded arches on paired shaft with foliated capitals; to the S, ie towards the organ chamber, a tall moulded super-ordinate arch with 2 subordinate arches and large cusped roundel. Chancel walls decorated in herringbone brick and mastic. (Stepped E lancets contain Expressionist glass by William G Blyth). Reredos: tripartite arrangement, the centre with Supper at Emmaus (by T Bromfield), of excellent quality,with side panels of mosaics by Salviati. Tiled floors. Full fittings include sanctuary rails, open-fronted stalls, open benches to nave; stone front and openwork wooden pulpit. Overall an outstanding church described by Newman (Buildings of England, 1980 edition, p 551) as 'thoroughly convincing ... tautly designed and with an excellent use of materials', and one of Blomfield's best works.

Listing NGR: TQ7387669490

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 173221
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Newman, J, The Buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald, (1980), 511

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.