Church of St Paul the Apostle, Paddington and attached church rooms, vicarage, garden wall and gates

Details

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 23/02/2015


949-1/0/10018

BROADWALK,
Church of St Paul the Apostle, Paddington and attached church rooms, vicarage, garden wall and gates

(Formerly listed as ST PAUL WITH CHRIST CHURCH and attached church rooms, vicarage, garden wall and gates, BROADWAY WALK)

09-MAY-03

II


Church. 1855-6 with major restoration and embellishment and church rooms and vicarage c.1970. C19 work by EH Shellard, rest by Stephen Dykes-Bower. Coursed squared stone with ashlar dressings and slate roofs with stone-coped gables with finials. Decorated style. Chancel with bell turret, nave, aisles and south porch. The north east porch is also the link to the church rooms with vicarage over at right angles, with garden walls completing the square. Church in Decorated style. East end has 5-light window with bell turret to side. This has octagonal arcaded top with shafts and spire. North east porch to right. North aisle has 3-light windows. South aisle has triangular window to either end, 3-light windows to side and south porch with door with segmental pointed arch.

INTERIOR. Chancel has elaborate altar rail from St.Alban, Rochdale, and carved choir stalls. Roof of arched braces to collars rising from stone corbels is richly painted and gilded and has stencilled decoration to the panelling. Late C20 wrought-iron choir screen by Norman Furneaux who worked at Westminster Abbey and Bury St.Edmunds. Nave has elaborately carved font on clustered columns from St.Alban, Rochdale (church designed by J.Clarke). Pews in nave and aisles from St.Anne, Brindle Heath (church designed by FP Oakley). In south aisle the organ is of 1787, by Samuel Green and from St.Thomas, Ardwick. The nave roof is of arched braces to collars rising from hammer beams themselves rising from wall posts and curved braces from carved corbels. Both this and the aisle roofs are richly painted and gilded with stencilling to the panels.
Attached at right angles to the church by the linking north-east porch is the range of church rooms with vicarage over of c.1970. This is of coursed squared stone with slate-hung first floor and slate roof. 2 storeys, a long range of 6 2- and 4-light leaded casements at first floor over 10 wooden mullion windows with decorative heads to the lights. This produces the effect of a cloister and indeed there is a doorway at the right end which leads to a long passage behind the windows. The rear of the vicarage has similar leaded casements at first floor over 10 2-light casements at ground floor with doorway to left. A high garden wall of coursed squared stone leads from the left end of the vicarage on the cloister side and turns at right angles to link with the north-west end of the church enclosing a square garden. This wall has very elaborate iron gates.

HISTORY. In the early 1970s the church was in a very poor state of repair and was about to be demolished and rebuilt. However, thanks to the Vicar, Canon David Wyatt, Stephen Dykes-Bower offered to supervise a restoration and embellishment. He restored the nave roof and replaced the aisle roofs with monopitched ones. He remodelled the south porch and designed elaborate stencilled decoration for the roofs. In addition he designed new church rooms attached to the church like one side of a cloister with a vicarage flat over, the other 2 sides being a garden wall. The whole carefully designed ensemble is like a vision reminiscent of medieval cloistered life, completely surrounded by tall blocks of post-war flats. Inside the church there are some fine fittings rescued from demolished churches since the original fittings had all decayed.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

490370

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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