Former Church of St Saviour

Details

ISLINGTON

TQ3285SW ABERDEEN PARK 635-1/39/2 (West side) 20/09/54 Former Church of St Saviour (Formerly Listed as: ABERDEEN PARK Church of St Saviour)

I

Former Anglican church, now a centre for the arts. 1865-66 by William White. Red brick set in English bond, dressings of blue brick and stone, roof of tiles. Three-bay chancel with north and south aisles, and north vestries, north and south transepts, nave of two-and-a half bays, octagonal tower and spire to crossing. Neo-Gothic style. The east end has angle buttresses with stepped offsets and stepped gables rising to inset pinnacles; east window of five lights with intersecting tracery of stone and hoodmould of brick. Two-light north and south windows to first bay of chancel have plate tracery in stone on brick mullions; north aisle of three bays, the second and third with a higher roof, vestries with twin gables to north, a later addition, entrance to vestries in east wall with Caernarvon arch under a tiny gable. South aisle to second and third chancel bay only with two lancets and circular window over; coved brick parapet; clerestory windows in the manner of spherical triangles; squinch between chancel aisles and transepts. North transept has angle buttresses and two-light windows with brick mullions and an external stack rising through the apex of the gable, the face of which is decorated with diaper work in blue brick. The south transept has a four-light window with Y-tracery and three-light window with cinqfoil to gable. South aisle has two pairs of lancets with trefoiled heads and quatrefoil over under a single hoodmould, and one set of three lancets treated in the same way; clerestory has two pairs of lancets with trefoiled heads and sexfoil over; south-west porch with angle buttresses, pointed-arched entrance with corbelled inner order, the inner arch having wave- and hollow-mouldings; stone-coped gable. The north side has aisle and clerestory windows as for the south and a gabled porch with deep pointed-arched entrance with hollow chamfer and hoodmould; original doors with decorative hinges. West window composed of two pairs of lancets flanking a broad mullion of stone banded with brick and pierced with blank quatrefoils, with rose window above, all under a hoodmould; two bell openings in gable which has diaper brickwork; octagonal turrets to either side, their west faces having buttresses with multiple offsets, with stepped pinnacles flanking the gables. The tower is square in plan between the parapet and the ridge of the chancel, then octagonal. The square dies into the octagon through a combination of buttresses and broaches to the non-cardinal faces; east, north and south faces have two-light windows in the octagon with quatrefoil over, the mullion of brick and the tracery of stone; brick cove to overhanging eaves. Lead gargoyles to north and south faces; octagonal spire with a slight bell-camber; wrought iron fleche. INTERIOR: . Single-bay sanctuary with canted sides and timber vaulted roof decorated with stencil patterns, except in the two sections over the east window which are painted with angels; north and south windows with embrasures and deep stepped splay to north, framed by a pointed moulded arch; choir of two bays with open arcade to either side, the north aisle forming the organ chamber, the arcade having an elaborately moulded inner order, characteristic of the church; to the south two clerestory windows with embrasures and deep stepped splay, framed by a pointed moulded arch; to the north an arcade of two sets of three pointed brick arches with an inner order carried on stone colonettes; timber roof with an adaptation of hammer-beam construction rising from wall shafts. Painted decoration to sanctuary and choir of c.1895: stylised flowers generally in lozenge patterns, taking their cue from decorative brickwork in the spandrels of the north and south arcades of the choir; reredos of painted stone divided into three by columns having canopies of ogee profile and crocketed gables, the panels depicting the Crucifixion in mosaic, the two outer panels of 1914; two-bay sedilia to south side under a hoodmould; chancel floor decorated with encaustic tiles, renewed 1990. Crossing open to a vault just under the roof; the first stage decorated with lozenge patterns in red, yellow and black brick, the next with diaper patterns in the same materials with two engaged colonettes running up each side; the octagonal timber rib vault carried on double squinches. Nave of two-and-a-half bays: the arch to the crossing has a double inner order, the moulded inner arches carried on twin brick colonettes; the surface above the arch decorated with brickwork in lozenge and other patterns; nave arcade of square piers with corner mouldings and arches with double mouldings to the edges and a central recess to the soffit; lozenge brickwork to spandrels; clerestory windows with stepped splay; north and south aisle windows have chamfered reveals and the easternmost pairs have embrasures to outer sides only and column substituted between them; king-post roof with arched braces; encaustic-tiled floor, renewed 1990; polygonal pulpit of grey and pink granite and alabaster, probably original and by William White: short column shaft with foliage capital, and open flat-arched arcade. Octagonal font on a short column shaft with wooden font cover decorated with enlarged crockets. East window of 1865, designed by N.H.J.Westlake and made by Lavers and Barraud. (Historians' file, English Heritage London Division).

Listing NGR: TQ3223685418

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368488

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