Summary
A Commissioners’ church constructed 1823-1825 to designs by Sir John Soane, and restored following Second World War bomb damage 1952-1955 by Thomas Ford.
Reasons for Designation
The Church of St Peter, constructed 1823-1825 to the design of Sir John Soane, is listed at Grade I for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as a well-preserved example of a church by Sir John Soane, one of Britain's most distinguished architects, and designed in his highly individualistic classical style;
* for its distinctive composition and form, including characteristically Soanean features such as the complex domed tower and the grand Ionic portico;
* for the restrained elegance of its interior, which is characteristic of Soane's mastery of space and light;
* for the quality of its fixtures and fittings, particularly the C19 reredos and font, which are complemented by the C20 stained glass at the east end;
* for its visual presence as a major urban landmark in Walworth.
Historic interest:
* as one of three churches designed by Sir John Soane following the Church Building Act 1818;
* for the importance of the church in the C19 and C20 history of Walworth.
Group value:
* with the Gates, Gate Piers and Boundary Railings and Walls to the Church of St Peter (NHLE: 1385663; Grade II), 28-52 Liverpool Grove (NHLE: 1385660; Grade II) and 54, 56 and 58 Liverpool Grove (NHLE: 1385661; Grade II).
History
In the first two decades of the C19 the population of Newington grew rapidly from 14,847 to 44,526. Non-conformists were adequately catered for in the London Road Chapel and later in the new church in St George’s Road, but the parish church of St Mary Newington could only accommodate just over 1000 people. Its burial ground was almost full and there was no other provision by the established church for the expanding population in the parish. In 1820 a local Act was passed authorising the erection of two new churches in the area: St Peter’s and Trinity. A site was selected on the east side of Walworth Road (then Turnpike Road) where a house with gardens and orchards behind were bought from the Clutton family for £2,197. The site was cleared for the new church and its approaches. The freehold interest was presented by the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury.
The first three architects approached to build St Peter’s - Christopher Edmonds, Thomas Ruck, and Simeon Thomas Bull - all had their designs rejected by the Church Building Commissioners, who then commissioned John (later Sir John) Soane on 26 August 1822. Sir John Soane (1753-1837) is one of British architectural history’s most distinguished architects, whose works include the Bank of England (NHLE: 1079134; Grade I), the Dulwich Picture Gallery (NHLE: 1385543; Grade II*) and numerous country houses. His fame in the late Georgian period as a highly individualistic classical architect has continued into the early C21 in which Soane’s work has been interpreted as proto-modernist. Soane was an active Freemason from 1813 and seems not to have been particularly devoted to the Anglican Church of his time, but he ultimately received commissions for three new churches under the Church Building Act 1818. St Peter’s was the second of these commissions and the first to be completed in 1825. The other two were the Church of Holy Trinity, Marylebone, constructed 1825-1827 (NHLE: 1267658; Grade I) and the Church of St John on Bethnal Green, constructed 1826-1828 (NHLE: 1065245; Grade I).
Soane began to produce drawings for St Peter’s in September 1822. Early design drawings suggest that Soane was using his designs for Holy Trinity, Marylebone (his first church commission) as the basis for St Peter’s. He originally conceived the church with a high, hipped roof over the nave to create a clerestory level, and with windows of equal height across the side elevations. Decoration would largely follow the Classical orders alongside Soanean details such as pinecone finials. Soane costed his original scheme at £17,800. The Commissioners had stipulated that the new church should accommodate 2000 people and that the cost was not to exceed £16,000. Although he proposed saving some money through tendering for many small contractors, Soane was unhappy at also having to compromise on materials to reduce costs. Yellow stock brick was substituted for the original white, the roof was covered with lead instead of slate, and much of the stonework ultimately used more economical Bath stone in place of Soane’s preferred Portland stone. In addition to structural changes and reducing the size of the vault, Soane’s revised designs of 1823 also cut back on the amount of original detailing. This can be seen in the truncated key-pattern frieze which wraps around from the front and rear elevations and extends just across the outer bays instead of continuing across the whole of the side elevations, and internally columns were left unfluted and the nave ceiling lowered to match that of the chancel. Despite Soane’s paring back of his original design, the final cost of the church was approximately £18,952. Ironically, during construction in 1823, Bath stone fell into short supply so the stone mason, William Chadwick provided some quantity of Portland stone gratis, allowing the front Ionic columns and parts of the tower to be constructed from this more durable stone.
The foundation stone was laid on 2 June 1823 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who returned to consecrate the completed church on 28 February 1825. Although Soane designed some of the original fittings, others are reported to have been designed by N Cachemaille Day, brought later from his Church of All Saints, Surrey Square. In 1886 the east end of the church was reordered by E Christian and a new altar table and choir stalls were installed.
The churchyard was made into a public garden in 1895 by the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association at the cost of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, an event commemorated by an inscription on a water fountain that stands at the east end of the churchyard. Instrumental in this transformation was the Reverend John William Horsley (1845-1921), rector of St Peter's from 1894 to 1904. A social reformer, Horsley was also chairman of the borough of Southwark's public health committee and of its largest workhouse. He went on to become an honorary canon of both Rochester and Southwark and, in 1909, mayor of Southwark. A keen botanist and zoologist, Horsley organised annual guided trips for parishioners to Meiringen in Switzerland, to enjoy apline landscapes, flora and fauna. He believed the most effective approach to diminishing crime was by improving the welfare of children, and during his tenure at St Peter's he cleared the church crypt of coffins and transformed it into a playground for the poor children of Walworth.
In 1919 cracks appeared in the church walls caused by rotten timber in the foundations, which were then replaced with concrete. Then in 1926 the east wall of the sanctuary was underpinned, and architect A E Henderson was commissioned to carry out a complete repainting and cleaning of the church.
During both World Wars the church was used as an air raid shelter. Revd John Gabriel Markham, rector to St Peter's from 1938 to 1944, converted the church crypt to accommodate 230 people early in 1939. Markham also served as an air raid warden throughout the war. By the summer of 1940 between 600 and 900 people were sheltering there every night. In the early hours of 29 October 1940 two bombs hit the church and detonated in the crypt. Markham recorded in his memoirs that over 70 people were killed and 250 seriously injured.
After the war, the interior was restored as close as possible to its original state under the direction of Thomas Ford between 1953 and 1955. Alterations were limited to the repositioning of the choir stalls to widen the sanctuary and the enclosure of the two most easterly bays under the galleries to create a Lady Chapel and a choir vestry. Part of the undercroft ceiling where the bombs had penetrated was reconstructed in reinforced concrete supported on the rebuilt brick piers and arches. Clare Dawson, pupil and friend of M E Aldrich Rope, designed new stained glass to be set in the three east windows of the chancel, replacing the damaged, original glass designed by William Collins. The church was re-dedicated by the Bishop of Southwark on 11 July 1953.
A new sanctuary floor and furnishings were installed in 1982. At some point in the late C20 or early C21 the original stone balustrading to the arcaded open loggia at the east elevation of the church was removed. In 2003 the undercroft was restored and refurbished to provide a community centre and café. Some of the piers reconstructed in the 1950s were removed and steel I-beams were inserted to support the ceiling, providing a new open hall space in the centre of the undercroft. The rest of the space was subdivided with lightweight partitions to create a digital arts centre, a computer suite, a crèche, a café and meeting rooms. The architect for these works was Russell Hanslip Associates, and Ellis and Moore served as structural engineers.
Details
A Commissioners’ church constructed 1823-1825 to designs by Sir John Soane, and restored following Second World War bomb damage 1952-1955 by Thomas Ford.
MATERIALS: the church is faced with yellow stock brick with stone dressings. The columns to the front (west) elevation are of Portland stone while the bulk of the tower is of Bath stone. The nave has a pitched, slate roof and the flat gallery roofs were re-laid with copper in the 1950s restoration.
PLAN: the church is rectangular on plan and is oriented on an east-west axis. The building comprises one main storey with internal galleries supported by columns approached by small staircases either side of the entrance vestibule, and a vaulted undercroft below. A tower of two stages stands over the west end.
EXTERIOR: the church has exterior walls of yellow brick laid in Flemish bond rising from a stone plinth. The walls support a moulded entablature which obscures the flat gallery roofs behind. The nave roof has a shallow pitch and abuts the tower. The windows are generally tall, round-headed and latticed, set within recessed brick arches and resting on Bath stone sills. The principal (west) elevation is five bays wide, with two such windows to the outer bays. The recessed central porch has four giant Ionic columns of Portland stone supporting a Bath stone entablature with a key pattern to the architrave spanning the width of this elevation. Set within the porch between the columns are three fielded-panel doors with Portland stone architraves and entablature. The central doorway rises higher than its neighbours, meeting a moulded band of Portland stone, above which is a recessed panel of Bath stone. A flight of stone steps extends the width of the porch.
The tower over the west end is of two Corinthian orders and rests on a balustraded parapet with Soanean pinecone finials to the corners. The lower stage of the tower is square. Each of its fours faces has a round-arched, louvred bell opening and a clock flanked by corner pilasters supporting the entablature above, which has a key pattern to the architrave. The upper stage is round with a cluster of eight Composite columns supporting a small dome surmounted by a weathervane.
The north and south side elevations are nine bays long. The outermost bays have windows slightly shorter in height below key-pattern architraves continuing from the west and east elevations. The inner windows have moulded panels of stone beneath them, and stone transoms indicating the presence of the galleries inside. The western part of the north elevation has been excavated to provide a ramp leading to a doorway which forms the main entrance to the undercroft. This has revealed the curved brick footings to the external walls with semi-circular, flat-topped buttresses corresponding with the church windows. These brick buttresses stop short of small, square-headed windows that light the undercroft.
The rear (east) elevation has projecting outer bays, each with a window slightly narrower than those to the other elevations. The key-patterned architrave wraps around from the side elevations and continues across these bays and along the returns to the deeply-recessed central three bays. Here there are three round-arched windows to the upper level, set above an arcaded open loggia of brick with a stone coping. A plain stone parapet stands above the cornice to the recessed section and there are small, arched windows to the return walls of the projecting outer bays.
INTERIOR: the nave is five bays long with aisles to the north and south beneath the balustraded galleries, which rest on Doric columns and have arcading carried on octagonal columns from the first floor to the ceiling. The aisles have an unusual, shallow, convex curve to their ceilings resting on tensely curved beams with pairs of scrolled consoles to the outer walls. The eastern ends of the north and south aisles in front of the original vestries were enclosed in the 1950s to form a choir vestry and a Lady Chapel, but the galleries above continue for an extra bay above these. A third, open gallery over the west end, which is also supported on Doric columns as well as turned columns of cast iron, now houses the organ, moved from Whitelands College, Putney and installed here in 2009. This incorporates parts of the original 1824 organ by Henry Cephas Lincoln previously in the sanctuary.
At the east end of the nave, the chancel is raised on a dais with the sanctuary raised on a further step up beyond. The chancel has Doric columns and pilasters to its north and south sides continuing from the aisles, with panelled doors leading to the adjacent vestries.
The roof is supported by shallow segmental arches spanning the whole width of the nave, one at the west end and two at the east above the sanctuary. These have circular cut-outs to the spandrels and are internally strengthened with wrought iron, an original feature. The flat ceiling is divided into a grid of rectangular panels, some of which have moulded rosettes, and has a moulded cornice and frieze with floral motifs.
Either side of the entrance vestibule there are square stair lobbies with rounded corners. At ground-floor level these lobbies are separated from the entrance vestibule by a succession of round arches. Each lobby contains a curved staircase of stone with a curved, timber handrail supported by iron stick balusters, two to a tread. Alternating pairs of these balusters contain a vertical arrangement of three cast-iron rosettes framed by a diamond pattern. Both staircases extend down to the undercroft. The north staircase always did this, but in 2003 was modified using original stones to accommodate an accessible platform lift. As part of the same phase of works, the south staircase was extended down to the undercroft using reinforced concrete. The half-landing of each staircase cuts across the arched window and is supported on a pair of thin, turned columns of cast iron. The top landings at gallery level are divided from the bell-ringers’ chamber by recesses containing pairs of Ionic columns and arched doorways leading to the chamber and galleries. The bell-ringers’ chamber has walls of rendered brick and two curved staircases leading to the upper level.
The undercroft extends over the whole area of the church and has five groin-vaulted aisles formed from red and brown brick supporting the York stone church floor above. Most of the openings have round arches. The central hall space has steel I-beams inserted in 2003 to support the ceiling. The openings between the two outer aisles and the three central aisles are circular, their bases partly buried in the stone floor. Many of these circular openings had semi-glazed partitions inserted as part of the 2003 works. A similarly-shaped opening (but positioned above the floor level) at the centre of the west end of the undercroft had the bottom segment removed during the 2003 works to provide through access so that it now forms a rounded horseshoe arch. The other openings at the west end are oval-shaped with rounded heads and bases while those at the east end are segmental arches.
CHURCH FURNITURE/FITTINGS: Soane’s original REREDOS stands against the east wall of the chancel. It has a pair of outer columns and pair of inner pilasters with Corinthian capitals, those to the pilasters flanking a flying dove and sunburst motif. Above this is a frieze with a key pattern in the centre and with scroll patterns either side, and a shallow, triangular pediment above. The entablature is surmounted by angels’ heads.
Above the reredos are the 1950s STAINED GLASS east windows above the altar, designed by Clare Dawson, which depict from left to right: ‘Christ Announced,’ ‘Christ Born,’ and ‘Christ Declared.’ The other church windows have clear glass, but those to the staircases and vestries have a border of blue stained glass.
A white marble FONT made by Garland and Fieldwick was installed in 1839 and stands at the west end of the south aisle. The font has a decorated bowl on a fluted column, and stands on a square, stone base bearing dedicatory inscriptions. There are stone MEMORIAL PLAQUES in the galleries and north-east vestry to former parishioners and their families dating from the 1830s to the 1850s.
