Church of St Paul

Church of St Paul

A medieval parish church, substantially altered and extended in the 19th century with contributions by George Gilbert Scott Junior and George Frederick Bodley.

The church is constructed of limestone with lead-covered roofs. It is traditionally oriented to the east and comprises a crossing tower with spire, an aisled chancel, north and south transepts, and a hall church nave (where the north and south aisles rise to the same height as the central nave body, creating a spatially uniform interior). The building stands within a churchyard at the focal point of a large square.

The exterior is faced in coursed rubble with freestone ashlar dressings and features crenelated parapets. The octagonal spire rises from a square tower and has three stages of lucarnes. The bell chamber has louvred openings in twin pairs of lancets, with round clockfaces on each side.

The five-bay, three-bay nave maintains uniform height throughout, with clerestorey windows set above taller aisle windows—all with four-centred arches and Perpendicular tracery. The west front displays three raised windows with more refined tracery and a central 19th-century portal in Early English style, featuring a ribbed canopy and figures of Saints Peter and Paul. The 15th-century south porch is two storeys high with angled buttresses, square hoodmoulds framing the door and flanking windows on the ground floor. The upper storey contains blocked side windows and a three-light traceried window facing south with canopied aedicules on either side. Within the south porch, now enclosed, sits the 13th-century south portal. The north side of the nave has one larger window in a two-centred arch. The 15th-century north porch was rebuilt in 1884 as a single storey with a canopied aedicule containing a figure of a saint above an open four-centred archway.

The 19th-century north transept has a 1924 vestry annex projecting from its base, faced in ashlar stonework with a flat parapet. A large Perpendicular Gothic traceried window rises in two stages to the height of the nave clerestorey, with a stair turret on the left side. The south transept mirrors the traceried window of the north transept but lacks the ground floor projection and stair turret.

At the east end, the chancel rises above and extends beyond the Trinity Chapel on the south side and the chapels and vestries on the north. The Trinity Chapel is four bays long with large three-light windows featuring Perpendicular tracery and a priest's door in the second bay; its east elevation has a four-light window. The chancel itself has five bays of clerestorey on the south side and four on the north (one bay occupied by a stair turret), with three-light windows flanking the high altar and a large six-light window of complex Perpendicular tracery in the east wall. The entire north side of the chancel is a 19th-century creation: the vestries and organ chamber rising to the clerestorey base are by George Gilbert Scott Junior, whilst the lower vestry block projecting beyond the transept line was designed by G. F. Bodley in 1898–9, featuring a flat roof and ashlar stonework.

The interior presents three aisles of equal height creating a hall church space. The nave roof is supported by figure corbels, each carved with a strange feathery bird—the 19th-century examples are smaller than the surviving 15th-century elements. Additional bosses and gilded figures populate the nave roof alongside the principal members. The south arcade dates to the 14th century and is replicated with different bases on the north side. The south aisle contains a relocated pulpit designed in 1871 by John Day. The central aisle has a Purbeck marble floor slab robbed of its original memorial brasses. At the crossing arch stands a finely carved clunch stone pulpit with delicate blind tracery and iron stair, originally part of an early 16th-century reredos repurposed in 1680 as a pulpit (John Wesley delivered a sermon from here). The font in the north aisle has a 14th-century base with a 19th-century bowl and 1936 conical cover by J. P. White. At the nave's west end is a large 1982 west gallery providing seating above and ancillary spaces below, forming an internal west porch with glass doors engraved by David Pearce and Meinrad Carighead.

The crossing features a coffered ceiling decorated with the Royal Arms. The north transept is dedicated to the Bedfordshire Regiment. The south transept contains the mayor's stall, created in 1872 by J. T. Wing. A rood screen designed by G. F. Bodley in 1905 crosses the chancel arch, complete with carvings of the Rood, the Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist, and two angels in prayer. The rood beam is supported by a ribbed canopy and arcade of delicate tracery, with painted panels and scrolling wrought iron gates at its base. Bodley's screen replaced a Perpendicular Gothic screen now relocated to the Trinity Chapel. A screen separating the Trinity Chapel from the chancel includes an open stair to an organ loft, probably designed by Albert Richardson.

The chancel has chequerboard marble flooring and a high altar raised seven steps above the choir. The stalls comprise Medieval and Victorian carpentry, with early 15th-century misericords surviving, including a depiction of the siege of Bedford Castle; graffiti on the attached desk includes carved game boards and the date 1628. Bodley's reordering introduced a choir of angels below the clerestorey. The 19th-century roof above the sanctuary is highly decorated. An engaged piscina and medieval sedilia survive on the south side of the high altar.

The Trinity Chapel also has an engaged piscina to the south of its altar. Lida Kindersley's 2009 inscription on the floor forms concentric waves around a cross, reading: "FROM THIS CHAPEL 1941–1945 IN THE DARKNESS OF WAR / THE BBC BROADCAST THE CHRISTIAN MESSAGE / NATION SHALL SPEAK PEACE UNTO NATION / THEY SHALL BEAT THEIR SWORDS INTO PLOUGHSHARES / HOPE THROUGH RECONCILIATION / FORGIVENESS THROUGH UNDERSTANDING / PEACE."

The church contains numerous stained glass windows by various artists, all dating from the 1870s or later, including works by Shrigley and Hunt, Clayton and Bell, Hardman and Co., Burlison and Grylls, A. E. Tombleson (for C. E. Kempe), and Paul Woodroffe. The latest window, dedicated to the Harpur Trust, was designed in 1976 by Brian Thomas.

The church is rich in memorials, the earliest being the robbed memorial brass of Simon de Beauchamp (died 1208), which had it survived intact might have been the earliest such brass in England. The memorial brass to Sir William Harpur (died 1573) and his wife Margaret survives in the Trinity Chapel. A second monument to Sir William, erected in 1768 on the north side of the Trinity Chapel altar and sculpted by Benjamin Palmer, features a black marble obelisk, white sarcophagus, and projecting chest suspended directly from the wall. On the south side of the chancel is a smiling portrait bust of Andrew Denys (died 1633), rector of St John's Church, standing at a pulpit within a classical aperture. Various other plaques and tablets from the 17th to 19th centuries can be found around the church.