Summary
Parish church, 1857-1858, consecrated in 1860, by JP St Aubyn. Reordered to a scheme by Giles Blomfield in 1974. The attached church hall is not included in the List entry.
Reasons for Designation
The Church of St John in the Fields, St Ives, Cornwall is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* as an original and coherent new church designed by the prominent C19 architect, JP St Aubyn, described as ‘one of his best’;
* for the design and execution of high-quality fittings by noteworthy artists, including Thomas Mille Dow, William Eadie, and William Banks Fortescue;
* for the use of local Cornish granite and Delabole slate in its construction;
* the unusual saddleback tower makes a strong contribution to the landscape.
Historic interest:
* for its historic link to Halsetown, a miners’ settlement founded by James Halse;
* as a representation of the religious needs of a growing industrial community;
* for its depiction in paintings by prominent artists, and its broader connections to the artists and galleries in St Ives and Newlyn into the C20;
* as an early example of C20 Anglican church reordering in Cornwall.
History
In 1832 James Halse (1769-1838), a solicitor and politician, constructed a planned settlement about a mile south-west of St Ives to house his workers at Wheal Reeth and St Ives Consols tin mines. Named after its founder, Halsetown became an ecclesiastical parish in 1846 and the first Anglican church services were held in a room adjoining the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel. The settlement was staunchly Non-conformist with several other chapels and the land around it also being owned by the Non-conformists. This steadfastness of religion meant that there was no site available to build an Anglican church in the settlement.
In 1857 Halse’s brother-in-law Robert Hichens purchased 40 acres of land for £180 on the outskirts of St Ives just to the north of St Ives Consols. Donating £1,000 towards building costs, he thus enabled a new church for the Anglican residents of Halsetown, which was initially known as the Church of St John the Evangelist. Hichens’ donation was held in trust by the Church Building Commissioners who also contributed £420, and further donations came from the Church Building Society and from local landowners.
The architect invited to design the church was James Piers St Aubyn (1815-1895). Although born in Worcestershire, JP St Aubyn had close ancestral connections to Cornwall through the Barons Clowance and, later, the Lords St Levan at St Michael’s Mount. From the 1850s until his death, St Aubyn restored 76 churches in the county, and designed 24 new ones. St Aubyn’s design for St John’s was based on his 1852 design for a new church at Mount Hawke in Perranzabuloe parish, which was not built due to its ambition. The architect kept the saddleback roof but evolved the design by adding a clerestorey with quatrefoil windows.
Plans for the church were approved by the Church Building Society in 1857; the foundation stone was laid on 4 August. The church opened for worship on 3 November 1858. The contractors were WF May Construction of Pool and the total cost was around £2,430. The church was consecrated on 26 May 1860 by the Bishop of Exeter, Henry Phillpotts. The first vicar was the Reverend William Hinton Drake, who served until 1874.
Local newspaper reports on the opening of the church described it as a noble building in the Early English style, with seating for 468; the reports noted that the seats were ‘slightly hollowed, as in…railway carriages’ and made from Baltic timber. St Aubyn’s plan also showed seats for children located at the front of the aisles, the font positioned by the south porch, and the pulpit next to the eastern pier of the north arcade. The church was lit with candles and the windows were all plain glass. The construction of the tower, which was not complete at the time of opening, was paid for almost in its entirety by Hichens. An organ was purchased through voluntary subscriptions in 1897 (decorated in 1901), and the church and ‘church field’ were lit by gas in 1899.
The fifth vicar of St John’s, the Reverend Richard Edward Griffin, was responsible for many of the interior fittings and decoration of the church. In 1901 the twelve empty spaces on the chancel screen were filled with paintings of the apostles by William Eadie (1847-1926). The apostles’ portraits were painted from life of friends of the church, who also contributed to the cost of the work. Amongst the sitters were the Mayor of St Ives, TR Harry, who was portrayed as St Matthew; Reverend Griffin as St James the Less; and Eadie as St Matthias. The project was such a success that figures of other saints were painted for other parts of the church, and it gained attention in local and national publications, including ‘Horner’s Weekly’ in June 1904. Eadie also painted panels of the crucifixion and ascension in 1902.
In April 1903 the east window was unveiled. Designed by Thomas Millie Dow (1848-1919), a member of the ‘Glasgow Boys’ school of painting, the window was donated by his wife Florence in memory of her father William Cox (d.1894). The east window in the north aisle was also unveiled in August that year in memory of Richard William Waudby Griffin MD (d.1881), the father of the vicar and donated by his mother Julia Augusta. Two further windows were added in 1905: to the vicar’s brother, Dr John Griffin (d.1895) at the west end of the south aisle, again donated by Julia Augusta; and at the west end of the north aisle, in memory of Arthur Lanham (d.1903), a churchwarden’s assistant at the church, donated by his father, James Kempthorn Lanham, founder of Lanham’s Gallery, the first art gallery in St Ives. James Lanham was himself commemorated with a memorial mosaic medallion in the chancel in 1931. In 1907 the church was carpeted throughout, sanctuary hangings and altar desks provided, and the altar table surrounded by oak panelling. In August 1908 a new oak reredos was installed, having been completed in March 1907 as the gift of the Misses Coode, Fourdinier and Leng, who executed its three panels of embroidery which were designed by the Newlyn School painter William Banks Fortescue (1850-1924). In 1920 a final memorial window was added on the south wall of the chancel, to the Reverend Griffin who had served the church for 23 years and died in 1918. It was donated by his widow Charlotte. At some point, the chancel screen with its portraits of the apostles was remounted and moved below the east window in the north aisle.
Electric light was introduced into the church in 1970, and in 1974 the church was reordered to designs by Giles Blomfield (1925-2012). St John’s was one of the first four significant reordering schemes in Cornwall, alongside St Day, Helston and Kea. The scheme involved moving the altar into the nave with communion rails placed around it so that the congregation could gather around the celebrant. The pews were removed to enable more flexible worship, the aisle floors levelled with concrete and the whole church re-carpeted, and the pulpit moved to the far east end of the nave, against the chancel arch. The font may also have been moved to the rear of the nave at this time. The altar has recently been moved back into its original position in the chancel.
Details
Parish church, 1857-1858, consecrated in 1860, by JP St Aubyn. Reordered to a scheme by Giles Blomfield in 1974. The attached church hall is not included in the List entry.
MATERIALS: local granite, Delabole-slate pitched roof. Bath stone dressings and Baltic timber used internally.
PLAN: the church is orientated south-west to north-east and comprises nave and chancel, west tower, north and south aisles and a south porch. A 1970s church hall is linked to the church on its north side (both the link and the church hall are not included in the List entry).
EXTERIOR: Early English in style, the church is constructed of snecked local granite with ashlar quoins and is eight bays east to west across its principal elevations (north and south). The west tower rises in three stages from a squared-granite plinth with roll moulding and angle buttresses with widely-splayed feet at the bottom, to a saddleback roof with granite copings and cross finial at the top. There are steps up to the west doorway which has a pointed arch with a granite hood mould. Above the doorway is a stringcourse, and then a lancet window (replicated on the north and south elevations), and above again the belfry has paired lancets with louvres on the east and west elevations. The gabled south porch has corner buttresses and paired windows with ogee heads on its east and west sides. Steps lead up to the outer entrance, a pointed arch with a hood mould, and the steeply-sloping gable-coping terminates in a cross finial. The south aisle has a pitched roof, four cusped lancet windows, and buttresses to the centre and east. To the east and west ends of the aisle are two-light windows with cusped tracery. Above the aisle, on the south elevation of the nave, is a clearstorey with four quatrefoil windows. The two-bay chancel is lower and narrower, with slightly swept eaves. On its south elevation are two paired cusped lancets with quatrefoils above, with a buttress between; and on the east elevation a three-light window with cusped tracery and a hood mould, and corner buttresses. Attached to the north side of the chancel is a lean-to vestry under a catslide roof with a tapering granite chimney. The vestry entrance is on its west side, and on the east side is a two-light shouldered-arch window. The north elevation of the church replicates the south, with a late-C20 single-storey link to the church hall inserted at the east end of the north aisle (both the link and church hall are not included in the List entry).
INTERIOR: the porch has a quarry tile floor, timber benches on each side, a cambered truss roof lined with timber, and deeply-recessed windows. Granite steps lead up to a granite pointed-arch inner doorway, and into a C20 glass and timber vestibule. Both the external and internal doors are planked timber. The nave is of five bays, defined by north and south arcades and roof trusses resting on granite corbels. The corbels to the principal trusses are positioned between each arch, and the canted ceiling has intermediate trusses and is timber-lined. The arcades are of Bath stone and comprise five pointed arches springing from octagonal piers with unadorned capitals. Above the point of each arch is a recessed clear storey quatrefoil window with a granite surround. At the west end, the screen door to the tower is of panelled and bevelled timber, with glazing in the upper panels, set in a triple chamfered granite arch. The spandrel above the screen is filled with a painted and stencilled panel; around the arch is an illuminated scroll painted on metal sheet inscribed with text from Matthew 18: 19-20; and flanking the arch are two painted panels by W Eadie depicting St Mark and St Paul. In the centre of the nave, close to the west end, is a Bath stone octagonal font with carved foliate and religious motifs and a simple timber cover. A single granite step is placed to its west. On the north side at the east end of the nave is a Bath stone open-pulpit with pierced trefoils and a stone lectern. There are no pews within the nave or aisles, and the church is carpeted throughout and has plastered and painted walls.
The north aisle has lancet windows to the north, each with a decorative roundel of oak leaves set in plain glass with a coloured border; they may be contemporary with the chancel east window or late C19. The west window depicts Christ saving Peter from drowning and the east window depicts St Pantaleon and St Luke; both were made by John Jennings of London. Below the east window is a relocated chancel screen with depictions of the apostles painted by William Eadie, and around the window is an illuminated scroll painted on metal sheet with an inscription from Luke 9:11. Along the north wall plate is a further illuminated inscription from Philippians 4:6-7. About halfway along the north wall is a C20 inserted doorway which connects via a link to the church hall; one of the lancet windows has been relocated to the west wall of the link. The south aisle has lancet windows to the south with diamond-leaded clear glass. The organ is located at the east end of the aisle, and along the south wall plate is another illuminated inscription, from Psalm 68. On the south wall, near the internal vestibule, is a granite memorial plaque to Richard Curnow who died on HMS Orinoco in 1896 on the way home from a planting-hunting trip to South America for his employer Hugh Low. The west window in the south aisle depicts the Baptism of Christ and was again made by John Jennings.
The pointed Bath-stone chancel arch has an internal attached arch springing from conical and octagonal moulded corbels. Around the outside of the chancel arch is an illuminated scroll painted on metal sheet with an inscription from Matthew 11:28. The chancel has a timber-lined, barrel-vaulted ceiling and along the north and south wall plates are further illuminated inscriptions from 1 Corinthians 10:16-17. The chancel floor is laid with tiles from the Ecclesiastical Pottery Company in Poole, and the choir comprises simple timber stalls with poppy-head finials. In the centre of the north wall is a granite shouldered arch doorway to the vestry, over which is a painted inscription on metal ‘Let thy priests by clothed with righteousness’ (Psalm 132:9). To the left of the doorway is a painting of the Crucifixion by Willliam Eadie, and to the right a commemorative mosaic roundel to James Lanham. Above the doorway is a painted and stencilled panel on metal depicting the dove of peace. Two steps lead up to the sanctuary, which has simple timber and wrought-iron communion rails. On the front of the early-C20 altar are painted depictions of four of the archangels, and three embroidered panels are mounted in an oak-framed reredos above. The east window depicts Christ as the Saviour of the World flanked by the Blessed Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist and is inscribed TMD and JJ - for Thomas Millie Dow and John Jennings - at the bottom of each light. The dedication is on a brass plaque mounted on the north wall. The east window is surrounded by another illuminated scroll with quotes from Revelation 4:8 and the Te Deum. On the south wall are two windows, one with diamond-leaded clear glass and the other, made by John Jennings, depicts Christ’s commission to Peter ‘Feed my sheep’. They are also surrounded by illuminated scrolls with quotes from Psalm 96, and in between the windows is a painted and stencilled panel of the Agnus Dei.
SUBSIDARY FEATURES: at the south end of the approach drive to the church are three square-section granite gateposts with pyramidal caps. The pedestrian gate is timber with five decorative chamfered horizontal bars, and the vehicular gate is wrought iron.
