Saint Alban's Church

Details

601/2/83 COOPERSALE COMMON 14-JAN-72 COOPERSALE Saint Alban's Church (Formerly listed as: COOPERSALE Church of St Alban)

II 1852 probably by Joseph Clarke.

MATERIALS: Flint pebble facing, limestone dressings. Red clay tile roofs.

PLAN: Nave, lower chancel, south porch, north vestry

EXTERIOR: The church is built in a simple C13 Early English style with lancet windows throughout. At the west end there is a pair of equal height lancets while at the east end there are three graded lancets. There were plans to build a north aisle hence the preparatory arcading built into the north wall (visible inside and out).

INTERIOR: The walls are plastered and whitened. On the north wall there are the arches and round piers for the projected north aisle. The capitals remain uncarved. The tall chancel arch has a moulded and chamfered head, foliage capitals and semi-circular responds. At the east end the three lancets have moulded arches over them and slender detached marble shafts between the sill and stiff-leaf capitals. The roofs over both nave and chancel are seven-sided canted ones. The chancel is floored with Minton's tiles while the nave has red and black quarries.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: In the chancel there is a drop-sill sedilia and a piscina to the east of it. The pewing is a largely complete scheme surviving from the building of the church and has square ends with sunk panels and small buttresses in imitation of a common medieval type. The chancel seating probably dates from the mid-C20. The altar rails, however, are probably of the 1850s and have trefoil-headed arches. The Gothic-style reredos has three gables and tall pinnacles. The font is a small marble bowl without a shaft. The pulpit is polygonal and of timber. There is good C19 stained glass in a number of windows.

HISTORY: The church was built in 1852 and was paid for by Miss Archer-Houblon of Coopersale House. She also paid for the school which is known to have been designed by Joseph Clarke and it seems probable that he designed the church too. Joseph Clarke (1819 or '20-1888) was a London-based architect whose practice was very largely concerned with church-building and restoration. His known works date from the middle of the 1840s until the time of his death. He was diocesan surveyor to Canterbury and Rochester and, from 1877, the newly-created diocese of St Albans. These posts helped bring in numerous commissions in these three dioceses but he also gained jobs over a much wider geographical area and examples of his work can be found in most parts of England. He was consultant architect to the Charity Commissioners.

SOURCES: Bettley, J and Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Essex, (2007) 304

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The Church of St Alban, Coopersale, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is a small early Victorian Anglican church in the Early English style * It retains a number of original fittings and some good Victorian stained glass

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

117557

Legacy System:

LBS

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