Church of St Mary With St Stephen and Attached Hall, Wall and Railings

Details

ISLINGTON

TQ3087SW ASHLEY ROAD 635-1/8/47 (North side) 06/10/88 Church of St Mary with St Stephen, and attached hall, wall and railings. (Formerly Listed as: ASHLEY ROAD Church of St Mary and attached hall, walls and railings)

II

Anglican church. 1860-1 by Alexander Dick Gough, the tower and spire completed in 1868; eastern aisles to both transepts and north, south and west porches added 1883; chancel floor raised 1911. Kentish ragstone with Bath stone dressings, roof of Welsh slate. Chancel, transepts with east transept aisles, aisled nave, south-west tower and spire, and north, south and west porches. Sill mouldings and hoodmoulds with label stops are general throughout the church. Sanctuary of one bay, lower than the choir, with a seven-light east window with geometrical tracery; two-light window to north and south with colonettes and mullions formed as circular shafts with foliage capitals and trefoiled circle to head; offset angle buttresses. Trefoiled spherical triangle to chancel gable. East aisle of north transept has three-light east window and one-light window to right, both with decorated tracery, and canted bay window to far right, flat-arched with three lights and ogee tracery. South transept aisle has a three-light east window with decorated tracery, gabled porch to left with Caernarvon-arched doorway, circular window to gable and diagonal buttresses. South end of aisle has three lancets with cusped heads to lights. Three-light window above with decorated tracery. The transept aisles both have gabled roofs with valley between aisle and transept. Transepts each have a five-light window to gable ends with geometrical tracery, trefoiled circular window to gable and three-light window to west side with decorated tracery. The south transept has in addition a shallow false south porch with ridged stone blocking to doorway and spherical triangle to tympanum. Nave and chancel are continuous and have one-light windows to the clerestory with mouchettes to heads. Octagonal timber fleche at crossing with pierced tracery, slate-hung spire and wrought iron finial. Nave aisles have four-light windows with alternating curvilinear and geometrical tracery between buttresses. Tower of four stages with double-chamfered south door and a pair of one-light windows to the west with cusped heads. Cross loops to second stage and cast iron clock faces to stage above with stone lozenge surrounds. Bell stage is set back and has two-light louvred openings with cusped lights, trefoils to heads and crocketed gable hoodmoulds. Offset angle buttresses and corbel table. Broach spire with symbols of the evangelists to base, shafted and gabled niches on top of broaches and two tiers of lucarnes to the cardinal directions. Narthex porch has central double-chamfered doorways north and south flanked by one-light windows with cusped heads, and embattled parapets. Aisles have offset buttresses between bays and plain stone coped parapets. Similar parapet to transepts and aisles. The mission hall to the north, of 1878, has a passage between hall and church with doors either end, and canted east end with large four-light flat-arched east window with king mullion, transom, and ogee-arched heads to lights. The roof has hipped section to canted sides of east end; herringbone stonework to top of east gable. On the south side of the hall is the original porch with segmental-arched entrance under a lean-to roof; two three-light windows with one transom and ogee heads; a chimneystack rises from the south wall between the windows, and is now truncated; a second stack to the west end has been rebuilt; two-storey extensionto west end in yellow brick and composition stone, of 1931. INTERIOR: of the church. Sanctuary framed by pointed arch with multiple corbel shafts, the corbels and capitals having foliage carving; cusped blank arcading to three sides of sanctuary with columns of different coloured marbles and foliage in spandrels; communion rails also in marble and of a similar design; gabled niches with crockets on north and south walls, either side of sanctuary, filled with mosaic. Choir and nave arcades are continuous with polygonal responds, coupled pink polished granite columns to transepts and transept aisles, and single columns to three bays of nave; double-chamfered arches, hoodmoulds with crocketed niches as stops to transepts and transept aisles, and foliage stops to nave. The nave extends beyond the arcade by four of the roof bays, and has pointed-arched openings to either side of the gallery, which is carried on a five-bay arcade of slim pink granite columns and pointed arches with blank trefoils between; a band of delicate foliage carved in high relief below arcaded balustrade to gallery. Nave and chancel have an arch-braced collar-trussed roof with queen posts, and wall shafts alternately long and short with foliage corbels. Octagonal limestone pulpit on four columns with elaborate panels carved with a mixture of geometrical and flowing tracery; original or late C19 carved oak choir stalls partly in situ; octagonal limestone font at west end carried on four marble columns and decorated with crocketed gables in panels. Excellent stained glass: east window of c.1861 by Lavers and Barraud; west window with Tree of Jesse of c.1870 by Lavers, Barraud and Westlake; south end of south transept aisle, Dorcas window in the style of the Aesthetic Movement, c.1883. Organ in north transept aisle with coved case in north transept. Low walls of Kentish ragstone in Ashley and Highcroft Roads, surmounted by railings with spearhead finials. (Eric Willatts: Streets with a story. The book of Islington: London: 1986-; Historians' file, English Heritage London Division).

Listing NGR: TQ3018487490

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

368534

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Willatts, E, Streets with a story The book of Islington London, (1986)

End of official list entry

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