St Barnabas Parish Hall

Summary

Parish hall of 1910, designed by Ernest G Cole in a Domestic Revival Arts and Crafts style, erected by subscription as a memorial to King Edward VII.

Reasons for Designation

St Barnabas Parish Hall, designed by Ernest G Cole in a Domestic Revival Arts and Crafts style and built in 1910 to commemorate the death of Edward VII, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: a complex design incorporating a large hall with stage, a smaller hall divisible into three sections and a caretaker's flat, with varied elevations and distinctive features including a clock tower, all built of good quality materials;
* Intactness: the exterior is intact apart from a replacement door to the porch; the interior is intact including an original fireplace and folding doors to the small hall;
* Historical interest: built by subscription to commemorate a major national event, the death of Edward VII, which appears to have been rarely commemorated, the foundation stone was laid by a future Prime Minister.

History

St Barnabas Parish Hall was designed by Ernest G Cole of 12 Bedford Row. The foundation stone was laid on 5th July 1910 by A Bonar Law Esq MP for Dulwich, a future Conservative Prime Minister from 1922-1923. An oak wall plaque in the porch states 'This the hall was dedicated on December 10th 1910 to the memory of Edward VII by the parishioners, residents and subscribers'. A corresponding plaque notes 'The freehold site of this hall was purchased in memory of Miss C W Cane who was a quiet, whole-hearted and thorough worker in the parish'. The hall was built to serve the old church of St Barnabas in Calton Avenue, a Perpendicular style church erected between 1892 and 1905 to designs by W H Wood, which was destroyed by fire in 1992 and replaced by a new church in 1997. The hall is marked on the 1916 Ordnance Survey map and its building footprint has not subsequently altered.

Details

Parish hall of 1910, designed by Ernest G Cole in a Domestic Revival Arts and Crafts style, erected by subscription as a memorial to King Edward VII.

MATERIALS: small hand made red bricks in Flemish bond with horizontal tile details. It has a tiled roof with a wood and lead cupola and three brick chimneystacks. All windows are wooden mullioned or mullioned and transomed casements with leaded lights.

PLAN: a roughly rectangular building, narrower in the centre, aligned north-east to south-west. It comprises a south-west porch and vestibule with projecting pavilions leading to a large full-height hall of five bays. This has a stage at the north-east end, and beyond it a small single-storey hall to the north-east, divisible, when required, into three parts, with a caretaker's flat above.

EXTERIOR: the south-west front has a large central tile-hung gable with a seven-light mullioned window. At the apex of the gable is a low square wooden clock tower with an ogee-shaped lead cupola with a cast iron weathervane. Below is a wide porch with a pair of Tuscan columns framing the entrance and Tuscan pilasters to each side. The doors are later C20. On the right side of the porch is a foundation stone bearing the arms of the Anglican Diocese of Southwark. Projecting forward at the sides are two lower, gabled pavilions with splayed inner walls and four-light windows beneath splayed tile overhangs.

The side elevations have swept down roofs to the pavilions and large hall. The pavilions have two mullioned windows, and the hall has five hipped dormers with casement windows and ground floor mullioned and transomed windows divided by brick pilasters. The central bay on the south-east side has large double doors, and on this side there are also two unequal-sized projecting gables with kneelers of horizontal tiles and mullioned windows. The caretaker's flat has a deep plinth.

The north-east end has a large central gable with horizontal tiled kneelers flanked by smaller unequal-sized bays. The central gable has two three-light mullioned windows to the upper floor and overhangs the lower floor, which has a large canted bay containing three mullioned and transomed windows. The northern single-storey bay has an end chimneystack and a four-light mullioned and transomed window. The southern bay has a hipped dormer with a three-light mullioned window, a four-light mullioned and transomed window and a cambered arched doorcase.

INTERIOR: the porch contains two oak wall plaques commemorating the dedication of the hall to Edward VII and the purchase of the freehold site.

The large hall is of five bays with a wooden arch-braced roof, the trusses tapering to the side walls, with angled queen struts, side ties and four tiers of purlins. The northern end has a raised panelled stage with a proscenium arch approached by flights of steps on each side with solid balustrades.

The small hall to the north-east is divisible into three sections by folding, panelled wooden partitions. There is a wooden bolection-moulded fireplace on the north eastern wall.

End of official list entry

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