Church of St Barnabas, Mayland

Summary

A rural parish church built in 1866 and designed by the architect Philip Charles Hardwick. St Barnabas retains most of its original high-quality fabric and stained glass.

Reasons for Designation

The Church of St Barnabas, constructed in 1866, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for its well-designed exterior emulating the Early English style of Gothic architecture;
* for its well-designed interior space with high-quality interior fittings including original pews, pulpit and font;
* for its high quality stained glass.

Historic interest:

* as a Victorian parish church that has undergone few major alterations;
* for the link with St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London and their surveyor, Philip Charles Hardwick who designed the building.

History

The manor and advowson (or the right to appoint a clergyman to a church on one’s own land) for Mayland changed hands many times from the C13 and were eventually gifted to St Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1693. It was decided to replace the original C13 church in 1866, then considered too small for the congregation and in poor condition.

The new church was funded jointly by the Hospital Governors and public subscriptions. The architect Philip Charles Hardwick (1822–1892), part of a distinguished architectural lineage and long-time surveyor for St Bartholomew’s Hospital, was commissioned to design the building. It was built around 300m to the south of the old church.

The old building was abandoned and eventually demolished in 1877.

Philip Charles Hardwick came from a family of architects: his father Philip Hardwick, paternal grandfather Thomas Hardwick, maternal grandfather John Shaw senior and uncle John Shaw junior were all architects. He trained with his father and with Edward Blore and became an architect of high repute, based in the City of London and appointed to the Bank of England and to St Bartholomew’s Hospital. He designed numerous buildings including St Edmund’s School, Canterbury built in 1854-1855 (listed at Grade II, NHLE 1242647) the former Crown Bank in Norwich built in 1866, (listed at Grade II, NHLE 1280895) Charterhouse School in Surrey, built in 1872 (listed at Grade II, NHLE 1190288) and perhaps most famously the Great Hall of Euston Station, (demolished in 1962).

The church was opened in June 1867 and consecrated by the Bishop of Rochester, followed by a celebratory lunch in a nearby barn. A minimal number of changes have taken place to the fabric of the building. The original bellcote that was located at the junction of the nave and chancel roofs was lost at an unknown date. In 1913 an organ was installed in the west end of the nave, requiring the removal of the back few rows of pews, the relocation of the font further eastwards in the nave, and the covering of the west window internally. In 1920 a First World War memorial window and brass tablet were added in the north side of the nave. In the early C21 the organ was said to be beyond repair, and was removed, revealing the west window again. In 1964 the patronage of the living was given to the Bishop of Chelmsford, ending the long association with St Bartholomew’s Hospital.

Details

A parish church built to the designs of Philip Charles Hardwick in 1866.

MATERIALS: Kentish ragstone, with ashlar quoins and slate roofs.

PLAN: The church is liturgically orientated (that is, it follows the convention of having its altar at the east end). It has a rectangular nave and a smaller rectangular chancel to the east. There is a south porch at the south-western end, and a vestry at the north-eastern end, off the chancel.

EXTERIOR

The building has steeply pitched gabled roofs to the nave, chancel and south porch, and emulates the style of Early English Gothic architecture. The east and west gables are topped with stone crosses and the church has stepped buttresses: those at the four corners are angled.

The nave has four bays each containing a cusped lancet window, and the west end has paired lancets with hoodmoulds, and a small window above.

The east window is a triple lancet, and the chancel south windows are double lancets. A foundation stone in the exterior east wall records that it was laid on 3 July 1866 by the Treasurer of Bart’s Hospital.
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INTERIOR

The nave has an open timber roof with principal rafters rising from corbels carved as a section of a bell moulding. The chancel arch rises from shafts and corbels with fully realised bell-moulded capitals. The chancel roof is boarded.

The east window is formed of triple lancets, cusped, each framed within a moulded arch and ringed shafts with bell-moulded capitals. The south windows of the chancel are also cusped lancets, deeply set within a pair of arches divided by a single detached shaft.

The building contains high-quality stained glass throughout. Most of the windows were by the celebrated and prolific company Powell and Sons and are original to the building. Most, including the east window, are by the artist Henry Holiday. The west window is by Henry Casolani, 1866; the nave north window is entitled ‘Faith' by J W Brown, dated 1876. The second window in the nave is the war memorial by Jones and Willis (1920), depicting a knight and his horse.

St Barnabas contains its original fixtures including font, pulpit, choir stalls and most of its pew benches. The platform for the pews that were removed in 1913 for the organ is still in place and the footprint of the original position of the font is still visible.

The chancel and centre of the nave are floored in original red and black quarry tiles. At the east end of the nave the floor contains a decorative memorial tablet to Anne Rose Gordon dated 1872.

Sources

Books and journals
Cormack, Peter, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Holiday, Henry George Alexander, (2004), .
Pevsner, Nikolaus, Bettley, James, The Buildings of England: Essex, (2010), 595

Websites
Art History Research - Philip Charles Hardwick, accessed 8 September 2025 from https://architecture.arthistoryresearch.net/architects/hardwick-philip-charles

Other
St Barnabas: The Church and Parish Church booklet by Zarath Freeth written 1967, reprinted around 1995.

End of official list entry

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