CHURCH OF ST PAUL

CHURCH OF ST PAUL, LANGTON ROAD

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Overview

1849-50 by H I Stevens of Derby. N aisle added 1864-5 by Stevens and Robinson. W narthex-porch added 1913. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1338857
Date first listed:: 07-Jun-1974
List Entry Name:: CHURCH OF ST PAUL
Statutory Address:: CHURCH OF ST PAUL, LANGTON ROAD

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Date:: 2001-04-28
Reference:: IOE01/03482/05
Rights:: © Mr Robert S Pattimore. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1338857
Date first listed:: 07-Jun-1974
List Entry Name:: CHURCH OF ST PAUL
Statutory Address 1:: CHURCH OF ST PAUL, LANGTON ROAD

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: CHURCH OF ST PAUL, LANGTON ROAD

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Kent
District:: Tunbridge Wells (District Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TQ 56664 39217

Details

872/10/310 RUSTHALL COMMON 07-JUN-74 CHURCH OF ST PAUL

II 1849-50 by H I Stevens of Derby. N aisle added 1864-5 by Stevens and Robinson. W narthex-porch added 1913.

MATERIALS: Local sandstone ashlar. Clay tile roofs

PLAN: Nave, chancel, crossing tower, N aisle. N porch, N and S transepts, N vestries.

EXTERIOR: St Paul is built in a severe early C13 style and shows the shift that took place in the 1840s towards a serious archaeological approach in the use of Gothic for churches. The core of the building is an unaisled cruciform structure of 1849-50. This has a six-bay nave in which the bays are divided by buttresses with offsets. Each bay contains a slender lancet window, without cusping. The crossing tower has three stages, the upper (belfry) one has four narrow, equal-height lancets. The top of the tower terminates in a plain parapet. At the NE corner there is a polygonal stair turret rising to the base of the belfry stage. The W end of the nave has a large five-light window with an inventive mixture of vertical mullions and intersecting tracery. Across the W end of the nave is a narthex-porch added in 1913 with a N-S gabled roof, a N and W entrance, the latter being richly moulded and having a tall gable over it. The N aisle, added in the 1860s, has its own gable and is almost as large as the nave. It has a three-light Geometrical W window and N windows of single and paired lancets. The E end terminates in a window with three graded lancets.

INTERIOR: The severe external architecture is continued inside. The walls are of bare sandstone ashlar and the S wall of the nave has a rather remarkable display of deep window reveals that are extended to the ground and have cusped heads framing the tops of the windows. The dominant feature is the N arcade dating from the 1860s extension separating the nave and added N aisle. It has short, dark marble quatrefoil piers on high moulded bases and a series of varied foliage capitals. The arches have multiple mouldings. The roof over the nave is steeply pitched and has a collar to the main trusses. Over the crossing there is an impressive roof with intersecting diagonals and a raised centre portion.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: A significant collection of fixtures remain from the original building. The font is of 1850 and has a foliated octagonal bowl with angle shafts and a moulded circular base. The pulpit has open sides, Gothic canopies and marble shafts at the corners. The pews are largely intact and have shaped and moulded ends. The most ornate item is the elaborately canopied reredos of 1869 designed by John Norton and carved by 'Mr. Farmer of Westminster Road' - probably by William Farmer of what would become the famous firm of carvers Farmer and Brindley: the central portion depicts the Supper at Emmaus with the side panels showing the Road to Calvary and the Entombment. There is extensive stained glass including the E window by Ward and Hughes.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: To the W of the church are the former schools, with multiple gables and Gothic windows, now converted to domestic accommodation. N of the church, on the boundary between the churchyard and the road is a magnificently stern, tall war memorial cross by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott bearing the names of the fallen in the First World War and constructed of Hollington stone.

HISTORY: St Paul's was built on the edge of a common on a site which was part of the Nevill Park estate, begun in 1833 by the earl of Abergavenny. The choice of an architect from Derbyshire is an unusual but the explanation may lie in the fact that H I Stevens was already building Fordcombe church a few miles to the W. Here the finance was provided by Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge (governor-general of India from 1844 and who returned home in 1848). The Hardinge family may well have been familiar with Stevens as they had a seat at King's Newton in Derbyshire. Another possible link is that Stevens' brother, Nehemiah Edward, practised as a minor architect in Tunbridge Wells and is said (Newman) to have been involved (in an unspecified way) with work at St Paul's: however, original evidence for this is lacking (Copus).

Henry Isaac Stevens (1806-73) enjoyed a long and prolific career between the mid-1830s and his death. Much but by no means all of his work was ecclesiastical and was concentrated in the East Midlands. He began practice in 1834, and from 1859 was in partnership with F J Robinson (1833 or '34-92).

SOURCES: Geoffrey Copus, St Paul¿s Parish Church Rusthall 1850-2000, 2000. Roger Homan, The Victorian Churches of Kent, 1984, p63. John Newman, The Buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald, 1980, p314.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The church of St Paul is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is a building of special interest as a good example of an Early English Gothic Revival church showing a good understanding of medieval architecture and its application to the design of an early Victorian Anglican church. * It has a fine extension of the 1860s to meet increasing accommodation needs. * It retains a largely complete ensemble of C19 fixtures.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 168155
Legacy System:: LBS

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.