Church of Holy Innocents

Details

800/33/258 TOTTENHAM LANE N8 10-MAY-74 (West side) CHURCH OF HOLY INNOCENTS

II

1875-77 by A W Blomfield.

MATERIALS: Exterior largely stock brick with red brick detailing, stonework for window mullions and tracery and for some tower details. Tiled roofs. Interior painted with exposed brick arches. Timber roof and screen to S chapel.

PLAN: Nave with 5-bay liturgical N and S aisles, one N and 2 S porches and small W projection. Chancel with N chapel and vestries, and SE tower with ground floor chamber leading into small S transept cum porch

EXTERIOR: Stock brick with red brick detailing in a plain early C13-style, producing a strong and austere effect. Plate tracery windows, the mullions in stone, the arches picked out in simple polychrome brickwork. Tall tower towards the road at liturgical E end with polygonal stair turret and pyramidal cap, diaper brickwork on middle stage, and bell stage windows with layers of recessed arches. Three light liturgical E window with foiled wheel window above; liturgical W window and clerestory windows are simpler with three stepped lancets, the central divided with simple plate tracery. Clerestory under gabled dormers. N vestries single story with gables. Modern timber porch with disabled access added in the middle of the S nave wall.

INTERIOR: Spacious interior. Nave arcades of 4 bays with an additional passage space at the W end. Cylindrical piers have stiff leaf capitals, exposed brick arches and moulded bases on high, square plinths. Brick heads to rere-arches of aisle windows. Brick chancel arch on short, corbelled shafts. Chancel E window with stone dressing to head of rere-arch and jamb shafts with shaft rings. Enclosed organ chamber in W bay of nave, but further enclosure of W end of c. 1973-4 mentioned in Pevsner and the VCH has recently been removed. Roof with trefoil-shaped trusses on corbels, boarded behind.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: Some open benches. Simple choir stalls with Gothic tracery panelled fronts relocated at the W end of the church. Polygonal stone font, another disused font basin outside the church. Marble reredos of 5 panels, the central panel with trefoiled arch under a gable in an early Decorated style and a late C19 painting of Christ enthroned on a rainbow. The outer 4 panels with much cruder C20 paintings of the Evangelists and Christological miracles as a memorial for the 1914-18 war. N chapel chancel screen in a very late Arts and Crafts gothic style, with an inscription commemorating the 50th anniversary of the church in 1927 and a curious glass pent roof and infill. Encaustic tiled floor in a geometric pattern in chancel. Some late C19 and early C20 glass, including E window of 3 lights commemorating Peter Robinson (of the department store). N aisle NE window, 1 light with female figure on Morris-style foliage background. N chapel E window, 3 lights of Faith, Hope and Charity as female figures in Arts and Crafts gothic niches, Hope especially attractive.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES; Brick boundary wall along Tottenham Lane with pilasters buttresses, some larger with pyramidal stone caps, appears to be contemporary with church.

HISTORY: Built 1875-7 to designs by A W Blomfield to serve the rapidly developing district between the parish church of St Mary, Hornsey and Christ Church, Crouch End, the church was entirely free-seated from the outset. A parochial district was carved out of St Mary's parish in 1877.

SOURCES: Lambeth Palace Library ICBS File 7877 Plan preserved in church Baker, T F T and Pugh, R B eds. Victoria County History: A History of the County of Middlesex, V (1976), 172-82. Pevsner, N and Cherry, B. The Buildings of England, London 4: North (1999), 550.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: Holy Innocents, Hornsey, should be designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is designed by an important church architect, A W Blomfield and characteristic of his earlier, more austere style. * It is a good example of the adaptation of early C13-style French and Italian Gothic motifs by the C19 Gothic Revival. * The tower has significant landmark value, and is a good example of the muscular Gothic style of architecture.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

201502

Legacy System:

LBS

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