Church of St Mark

Details

934/0/10062 CRANBURY ROAD 15-MAY-07 Church of St Mark

II Church of St Mark, 1904-5, by Montague Wheeler in a broadly Arts & Crafts style but with Gothic revival references.

MATERIALS: Red brick in English Bond with stone dressings, tile details and slate roofs. PLAN: Broad nave with shallow lean-to aisles, lower narrower chancel to east end, paired flat-roofed vestries to north, octagonal stair tower to north-west.

EXTERIOR: Principal elevations to the north and south. Nave, lit by leaded lancet clerestory windows, with a pitched roof largely hidden behind a brick parapet. Triple traceried aisle windows between dramatic stepped flying buttresses, continued at roof level where stepped ribs climb behind the parapet. Each 'step' has a tiled gabled cover. Contemporary flat-roofed double vestry at the north-east corner with chequerboard parapet in brick and stone. Also triple and quadruple traceried windows with stone surrounds and an external door to the west, also with a stone surround. Chequerboard motif also to the parapet of the polygonal stair tower. Complementary narrower chancel, although less flamboyant than the nave, with stepped buttresses and a lower pitched slate roof behind a crenellated parapet. The chancel windows are more elaborate in their tracery, including a large five-light east window. There are two main entrances with boarded double doors with stud decoration and decorative iron handles. The northern, between a flying buttress and the stair tower, has an elegantly moulded segmental arched surround in red brick. The west entrance is more prominent, with a segmental arched moulded hood in stone with a stepped drip mould/string course to this and to the adjacent paired traceried windows. Large three light traceried window above and stepped stone eaves with stone banded decoration to the gable. Rainwater goods throughout is highly decorative, with horizontal hoppers decorated with oak leaves.

INTERIOR: Internally rendered and painted white with piers and arches in stone for contrast. Two paired vestries to the north which have broad and solid plank and studded doors with shallow arched heads. North-west stair turret contains a stone spiral staircase, with a prominent stone newel post with tooled decoration, providing access to the organ loft at the west end. The organ loft is painted and panelled. There is a small south-west chapel in the nave. Both nave and chancel have boarded collar beam roofs. The nave roof is supported on timber wall posts rising from simple stone corbels and is divided into panels by broad semi-circular arches rising from slender ribs rising from the piers. Floors are in herringbone wood block. Late C20 re-ordering with the removal of the nave pews and their replacement with wooden chairs and an additional altar now under the chancel arch; the original altar remains at the east end. The altar rail has also been moved into the nave. Decoration is, on the whole, subtle with small foliate stone bosses to the chancel arch and tracery to the sedilia.

FIXTURES & FITTINGS: Organ of 1912 by William Hill & Son. Some interesting stained glass windows including, at the west end, windows by Joseph Nuttgens and Reginald Hallward. An earlier window of 1889 depicting the crucifixion was transferred from the late C19 mission church. The large east window is a late work (1904-6) by Charles Eamer Kempe, with an additional lower panel of 1922 by Kempe & Co. Stone baptismal font of 1906 with heavy carved wooden cover of 1908 and a decorated panelled pulpit. Carved oak choir stalls of 1920 and also a memorial to the First World War. The Stations of the Cross are French, circa 1860.

HISTORY: Montague Wheeler (1874-1937) and his architectural partner Edward Barclay Hoare (1872-1943) established their practice of Hoare & Wheeler at Friar Street, Reading in 1898 and also had premises at Portman Square in London. They seem to have undertaken a number of ecclesiastical commissions including both renovations and new designs. Wheeler received the commission for St Mark's in 1902 making this one of the firm's earliest works. The building replaced a tin mission church (also called St Mark's) which had been established here in 1889 and which was located to the south of the present building. An examination of the original floor plan demonstrates that the church is largely unaltered except for the addition of some fixtures and fittings in the early C20. St Mark's was a daughter church to St Mary Le Butts in central Reading before becoming a parish church in its own right in 1972.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: The exterior of St Mark's is unusual in its massing, particularly in the ranks of flying buttresses and stepped ribs to the north and south elevations. There is also evidence of quality craftsmanship in the choice and application of materials. Although relatively austere internally it has been well composed, in particular the use of light and shade and the contrast of different forms of arches; those wide segmental arches of the arcade subtly referring to the expressionist European style that Wheeler looked to later in his career. There are also some good fixtures and fittings particularly the glasswork. The church, while broadly in the Arts & Crafts style, represents an interesting merging of elements of both this and Gothic revivalism in its references.

SOURCES: http://www.churchplansonline.org/ church listed as St Mark, Tilehurst, Berkshire

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