Church Of St Matthew

Church of St Matthew, Scarborough Avenue, Skegness

This large parish church was built between 1879 and 1885 to serve the newly developed seaside resort of Skegness, replacing the older parish church of St Clements which lay away from the town centre. The project was supported by the Earl of Scarborough, who gave £3,000 towards the cost and was instrumental in developing the town as a resort. The church was consecrated in 1880 but work continued until 1885 following further fundraising. The original architect was James Fowler. A western extension was added in 1902–1904 by W and C A Bassett Smith after an intended western tower was abandoned due to structural problems.

The church is built in coursed, squared stone with tiled and slated roofs and a timber bell turret. It stands prominently in an Early English style. The plan comprises an apsidal chancel with a north organ chamber, an aisled nave, a south porch and a western annex.

The exterior features an apsidal chancel with lancet windows set within shafted outer arches and a prominent corbel table. The north organ chamber projects like a transept. The nave has paired lancets in the clerestory and lancets in the aisles, all with hood moulds. Gabled doorways face north and south, the latter being the main porch. The western bay of the nave, built as an extension when the tower was not constructed, has heavily buttressed faces to north and south. The western window comprises a pair of lancets within a triplet of rich blind arcading with detached shafts, with a further triplet of lancets in the western gable. Corner turrets and a small bell turret with a tall broach spire crown the composition. The early 20th-century western annex is low, in a Perpendicular style. A statue of St Matthew stands in a canopied niche at the centre of the western face.

The interior is plastered and painted with exposed stonework of red sandstone, designed in a 13th-century style influenced by Early English work at Lincoln Cathedral. Five-bay arcades run north and south, with polygonal piers having moulded capitals and bases and hood moulds with head stops on the nave faces. The clerestory stands behind two-light inner arcades with detached central shafts, and the principal roof trusses descend on foliate shafts to corbels in the arcade spandrels. The chancel arch is in Lincoln and Trondheim style, with small leaves on the core of the responds and detached shafts. The apse windows have shafted rere-arches. The lower part of the eastern end of the apse contains stone blind arcading with trefoiled arches on detached shafts, deep enough to form seats. The central section forms a reredos, more elaborate with gables over the arches, angel pinnacles and quatrefoil panelling at the back of the arches, richly painted and gilded throughout. A tall arch marks the position intended for the tower that was never built. The nave has a plain trussed rafter roof, while the chancel has a boarded timber vault with angels on the wall plate. The western end of the nave is partially closed off with glazed screens.

The church contains several significant fittings. The 19th-century font is in a Victorian High Gothic style with a richly carved arcade on detached shafts around a central core. A fine font cover, carved in the 1960s by local craftsman Ruben Farmer in memory of his parents, is executed in a stylised Gothic idiom and is no longer positioned over the font. A polygonal tub pulpit dates to 1954 and was designed by Lawrence Bond of Grantham in a 17th-century style, featuring a slender stem with a tester and steps with an open balustrade. Attractive 20th-century low iron gates in Gothic style, formerly part of a chancel screen, are now displayed elsewhere. Riddel posts with angles from an altar by Ninian Comper (1952) have been reused to form a baptistery.

The windows include good 20th-century work. A south aisle window is by Ninian Comper, a north aisle window by Henry Stammers, and the apse windows date to 1948 by Hugh Easton. Several windows were damaged during the Second World War and replaced afterwards. The church was partially reordered and given new fittings in the 1950s. Plans for substantial reordering were proposed in 2009.