Details
787/40/410 ST DUNSTAN'S ROAD
14-AUG-53 CHURCH OF ST DUNSTAN
GV II*
DATES OF MAIN PHASES/ NAMES OF ARCHITECTS:
1802 by William Walker. Aisles added and church `Normanised¿ in 1854-7 by Francis Byass, who added the N and S aisles.
MATERIALS:
Stock brick with slate roofs and shingled spire. Stone dressings to 1850s work.
PLAN:
Chancel, nave with N and S aisles, W tower. W gallery. Small E vestry.
EXTERIOR:
Still strongly Georgian in character despite the neo-Norman aisles of the 1854-7. W tower, nave and chancel of 1802. The nave and chancel roofs have deep soffits, and the E gable is treated as an open pediment. Chancel and tower have round-headed openings with lighter brick voussoirs in the heads. Three-stage W tower porch with an embattled parapet and octagonal, shingled spire. W doorway of two, plain round headed arches and a 2-leaf door with flush panels, Matching blind recesses on the N and S faces. Small pane round-headed W window with spoke glazing bars in the head, and blind windows to N and S. Round-headed belfry windows with louvers in all faces, that on the W with a large clock face in the head. The chancel is also 1802 and has tall, round-headed windows to N and S and a Venetian E window. A small and boxy E vestry projects below the E window. The aisles were added in 1854-7 in a neo-Norman style and have eaves bands with corbels, and paired round-headed windows with a single order of incised chevron carried on detached shafts with cushion capitals and small buttresses with stone dressings. Small, round, paired clerestory windows are probably also 1850s. The SE door is also neo-Romanesque, and has a shallow, gabled porch and a diagonally boarded door.
INTERIOR
The interior is plastered and painted. The Venetian E window has internal shafts and roundels with plaster roses above the flanking lights. Flat plaster ceiling to the nave and chancel with 1802 plasterwork, including acanthus ceiling frieze and a deep, reeded wall frieze decorated with husk ornament and enriched with pairs of cherub heads and Hebrew monograms in sunbursts. Central ceiling motif of a dove. The cornice in the nave is partly broken by the clerestory windows. The W gallery of 1802 is a good example of its date, and has fluted, Doric columns and a panelled front with a bold inscription of 1802 recording the construction of the church, and smaller inscriptions of the 1850s recording its enlargement. The gallery stair, in the W lobby, has turned balusters with stick balusters to the gallery above the lobby. Three bay N and S arcades of 1854-7 with round, chamfered arches on very simple, Doric capitals. The cylindrical piers are marbled.
PRINCIPAL FIXTURES:
Black and white tiles, probably 1802, in the sanctuary, the rest of the floor carpeted but said to preserve at least one C18 floor slab. Good W gallery of 1802. Georgian-style marbling on the 1850s nave piers, an unusually late example. Box pews, panelling and a reredos were removed in the 1950s in favour of chairs. 1950s fielded panelling behind the altar, and a small, wooden font of the same date. Interesting E window by O¿Connor in a Renaissance style, probably 1850s or 60s, depicting the Good Shepherd in the central panel with texts in the flanking panels, including grisaille heads of the evangelists. N chancel window of stamped quarries, dated 1884. Late C19 and early C20 glass in the aisles. In chancel, scrolled marble cartouche to Nathaniel Crewe, d.1688/9, reset from the old church. There are also a number of other, mostly C19, wall tablets and a marble bust, now in the gallery. A C13 floor slab loose in the tower.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES:
High, stock brick walls in the churchyard may also date to the early C19.
HISTORY:
A church is first recorded at Feltham in the twelfth century, when it was given to the Hospital of Giles in the Fields. Nothing is known of the medieval church, which was entirely rebuilt in 1802 to designs by William Walker (c.1765-1837) of Chertsey (Surrey), a builder and surveyor who also designed the church at Ashford (Middlesex). The 1802 church comprised the present nave, chancel and W tower. In 1854-7, N and S aisles were added to designs by Francis Byass of London, about whom little is known.
SOURCES:
Lambeth Palace Library Incorporated Church Building Society 04848
VCH Middlesex 2 (1911), 314-9
B. Cherry and N. Pevsner, Buildings of England, London 3: North West (2002), 416
RCHM Middlesex (1937), 25
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
The church of St Dunstan, Feltham is designated at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:
* An unusual Georgian rebuilding, overlaid with an unusual 1850's phase of Romanesque revival embellishment.
* A largely intact interior, retaining its Georgian gallery and plasterwork.
* Interesting fixtures, such as the Italianate E window and numerous monuments.
