Church Of St Paul Including Attached Former Sunday Schoolroom

CHURCH OF ST PAUL INCLUDING ATTACHED FORMER SUNDAY SCHOOLROOM

Church with attached former Sunday schoolroom. Built 1877-1879 to the designs of Sir George Gilbert Scott. Following Scott's death in 1878, the building was completed by his son John Oldrid Scott. Early English style. English bond red brick in various shades with Ancaster stone dressings, banding and a stone spire to the tower. Lead roofs to the church, tiled roof to the former schoolroom. The plan comprises a clerestoried nave with north and south aisles, north-east organ chamber and vestry, south-east chapel, south-west porch and freestanding west tower connected to the nave by an arcaded walk. At the north-east there is a corridor and loggia which forms the link between the church and a small schoolroom, now used as a kitchen, roofed on an east-west axis.

The exterior is very grand, both in scale and richness of architectural detail. Corbel tables run along the eaves. The chancel has angle buttresses, a triple lancet east window and a quatrefoil in the gable, with paired north and south lancets. Off the north side of the chancel is a two-storey transeptal organ chamber and vestry block with a single storey north end lean-to. The nave has pilaster buttresses with stone set-offs and paired lancet windows to the clerestory. The triple lancet west window has two-tier shafts with arch rings and a pair of roundels above. The aisles have buttresses with canted corners and double-chamfered lancet windows.

A big gabled south porch has clasping buttresses and a richly moulded arched outer doorway with orders of toothed, dogtooth and stiff-leaf carving on shafts with moulded capitals. Lancets within shafted arcading appear to the sides. The inner doorway is more elaborately moulded with marble shafts and a good door with curly strap hinges.

The west end of the nave is linked to the tower by a three-bay arcaded walk with sprocketted eaves, moulded round-headed arches on clustered shafts and pointed sub-arches on a low brick and stone wall. The windows are similar in miniature to the nave arcades inside.

The massive four-stage west tower has big angle buttresses terminating in quatrefoil pinnacles with finials. The tower has lancet windows throughout, becoming more elaborately decorated to each stage, with a frieze of trefoil-headed arcading at the clock stage. The belfry windows are within richly moulded arcading with clustered shafts. A Lombardic frieze runs below the very tall spire, which has three tiers of lucarnes.

On the north side a single-storey block links the organ chamber and vestry to a former schoolroom. The link block is open-fronted on the east side with timber posts on stone pads. The gabled schoolroom is roofed west to east and has three square-headed stepped west end windows and a gabled west end bellcote.

Attached to the choir vestry at the north-east end of the church is the link corridor which leads to the school. This is a single-storey structure of similar red brick to the church but with a tiled roof. Access from the church is gained externally through a three-bay loggia supported on simple square section timber piers with angled struts. The first bay is enclosed with an open iron screen of plain design. Behind the loggia are two rooms, now used as toilets, a kitchen and the single schoolroom. This is expressed externally as a gabled wing at right angles to the link block with a bellcote on the west gable. The gabled wing has a triple flat-headed window to the east and west elevations, the central part of greater height. The whole of the west window still has diamond-shaped small panes. The box section cast iron gutters have a swirling vine pattern. A 20th-century prefabricated extension stands on the end of the schoolroom.

The interior is plastered and has banded white and red Ancaster stone dressings. Instead of strong red brick, there is a subtle colour scheme. The alternating bands of Ancaster stone complement each other in a way that achieves a polychromatic effect without the harshness of much 19th-century constructional polychromy. The two shades of stone of the arcade and other arches are placed irregularly, thus subtly avoiding the effect of a dead pattern, the horizontal bands within the arcade arches being the only element of fixed banding.

The six-bay nave is divided with three principal semicircular arches which are then subdivided into six smaller pointed arches. The piers of the principal arches are in the form of Greek crosses with detached shafts within the curved angle of the cross, while the latter are round piers. The spandrel between each pair of arches is pierced with a quatrefoil opening. The broad and richly decorated triple chamfered chancel arch has roll mouldings and carved label stops, that on the north side depicting Bishop Christopher Wordsworth who dedicated the church. There are bell capitals to the nave piers and extensive stiff leaf carving by Farmer and Brindley to those of the chancel arch and the shafts of the roof struts.

Deep splayed jambs to the nave windows have shafts attached by a fine fillet of stone. The paired clerestory windows are set back in deep splayed jambs with a detached arcade forming the internal arch. The east and west windows also have attached shafts. Although the nave is tall, it is saved from being barn-like by the rich design of the roof where the combination of crown posts, tie-beams and twin curved struts visibly hold the composition together. These struts spring from wall posts rising from stone shafts supported on carved stone corbels. The crown posts have four-way bracing. The chancel roof has one crown post truss with tracery infill between the tie and brace. The roof is ceiled with a keeled boarded wagon divided into panels by moulded ribs. The wallplate has an arcaded frieze.

The east and west windows have tiered internal shafts with arch rings and the north and south chancel windows have detached inner shafts. A piscina and sedilia are set in the south wall of the chancel. The altar table is of oak topped with a slab of Mansfield Woodhouse stone and raised seven steps above the nave, the steps within the sanctuary being of polished grey fossil marble. The remainder of the sanctuary floor is of patterned encaustic tiles.

The organ by Forster and Andrews of Hull is located on the north side of the chancel. Choir stalls have shaped ends and buttressed bookrests with trefoil-headed arcading. The polygonal timber pulpit by Farmer and Brindley sits on a carved polygonal stone base. The sides of the pulpit have octagonal timber shafts to recessed panels with pierced decoration and carved panels below. There are flower motifs in the lower panels and circular laurel devices in the upper. The pulpit has a fine iron stair balustrade with curly brackets and a brass handrail. The ironwork of the high quality low chancel screen and gates with cresting, as well as the pulpit handrail, is by Skidmore.

The font is square with panels containing foliage motifs, and is of Mansfield Woodhouse stone on Purbeck marble shafts. It is similar in form to that in Lincoln Cathedral. The pews and choir stalls are in oak and are open-backed. As befits the decorative scheme of the church, the pews are more elaborate than those in many of Scott's churches and have richly shaped ends.

Tinted cathedral glass is fitted throughout other than in the east windows, which were reglazed in 1968 with clear glass, and in the east Lady Chapel, furnished in 1948, where there is a stained glass east window of the Virgin Mary and stained glass in the three side windows. The vestry and choir vestry retain their original cupboards and lockers and stone fireplaces. The schoolroom has a stone fireplace.

This church together with its attached and integral Sunday schoolroom was built in 1877-1879 as part of a single large project together with the vicarage, which is some 10 metres away across the vicarage garden. All were designed by one of the foremost architects of the 19th century, Sir George Gilbert Scott, and they are one of his last works as he died in 1878 as they were being built. The construction was completed by his son, John Oldrid Scott, himself a distinguished architect. The buildings were paid for by a local lady, Miss Charinton, but a major player was the Vicar of Spalding, Canon Edward Moore, who had earlier commissioned from Scott not only the restoration of the parish church and the Church of St Peter, demolished in 1968, in Spalding, but also the restoration of Crowland Abbey. Canon Moore was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and had joined the Spalding Gentlemen's Club, one of the oldest antiquarian societies in the country, in 1834, becoming its President in 1872. He was an enthusiast for architecture, particularly, it seems, the Early English style. It is reported that Miss Charinton paid for the work, total cost £30,000 together with an endowment of £300 a year, with an eye to her nephew becoming the first Vicar. He did so, and as well as being Vicar was a distinguished scholar. The Reverend Richard Guy Ash (1848-1935) was appointed Vicar of St Paul's in 1878, became Professor of English History at Aberystwyth in 1879, and remained at St Paul's until his death, a tenure of 55 years from the date of opening of the church.