Church Of St Barnabas

Church of St Barnabas, Linslade

The Church of St Barnabas was built in 1848–49 by Benjamin Ferrey as the parish church for the newly developing settlement of New Linslade, which had grown around the canal (opened 1805) and railway (1838). The foundation stone was laid on 31 May 1848, and the church was consecrated on 15 June 1849, becoming a parish church the following month. The original building consisted of a nave with a west gallery, chancel, and north porch.

Expansion was necessary by the 1860s due to overcrowding. Plans initially drawn by Bristol architect Joseph Neale were criticised by the diocesan architect G E Street, and the commission returned to Benjamin Ferrey, who added the south aisle and southwest tower in 1868–69. Further extensions followed: a lady chapel and part of the north aisle were added in 1905 by J T Lawrence, the north aisle was finished and north and west porches added in 1912–13, and the chancel was extended by 15 feet in 1913–14 by G H Fellowes Prynne. Despite this long building history, the successive additions follow the original design carefully, creating a surprising unity.

The church is constructed of local coursed squared rubble with Bath stone dressings and bands, under brown clay-tiled roofs. It is designed in the Gothic Revival style, inspired by late 13th-century architecture.

The exterior presents a spreading composition with each section separately articulated under its own gables. The chancel features clasping buttresses and a four-light Geometrical west window, with tall two-light windows on the north and south sides and a one-light trefoil-headed window on the south. The organ chamber has a two-light traceried east window. The lady chapel, on the north side, has a canted apse, a fleuron-carved eaves cornice, and a ribbon of trefoil-headed lancet windows. The nave aisles are buttressed with two-light windows featuring quatrefoils in the heads; the east bay of the north aisle contains a three-light window partly obscured by the north porch. The nave's west window is of four lights. A porch with a moulded head and shafts in the reveals projects in front of the west wall. The southwest tower is of three stages with a plain parapet and corner gargoyles. Clasping buttresses articulate its lower stage, set-back pilaster buttresses the next stage, and corner shafts the belfry. The tower has chamfered lancet windows and large two-light belfry windows with shafts and hoodmoulds, a moulded south doorway, and a low-peaked roof.

The interior arcades have conventional double-chamfered arches on cylindrical piers with foliage-carved capitals. The arch at the entrance to the chancel has fillet moulding and semi-circular responds. The chancel is covered by a boarded keeled wagon roof divided into panels by moulded ribs. The nave is roofed with a hammerbeam construction, plastered behind with two tiers of wind-braces and a flat ceiling above the collar. The aisles have arch-braced roofs, also plastered with flat ceilings above the collar. The lady chapel is separated from the choir by a two-bay arcade with circular piers and features a stone band carved with text, wall shafts, a string-course, shafts to the windows, and attractive black and white marble paving. The sanctuary has marble and stone paving dating from 1912.

The church contains a notable collection of fixtures added since its original construction. The benches (1912) are well-made with tracery in sunk panels, the tops alternating between square-headed and scoop-out forms, with some carving added in 1915. The font (1913) has a deep bowl of Verona marble with carved sides on a cylindrical stone base with green and red marble shafts. Chancel stalls dating from 1897 have shouldered ends and blind tracery decoration. A wrought-iron screen by Jones and Willis at the chancel entrance also dates from 1897. The timber pulpit has open traceried sides on a Dumfries stone base; the pulpit and tester were designed by E B Ferrey (son of the church's architect) and date from 1883. The reredos, also by E B Ferrey, dates from the same year. A wooden lectern of 1912 was designed by G H Fellowes Prynne. The stained glass includes windows by C E Kempe (two windows in the north aisle from 1878 and 1885, original to the church, and additional windows filled in 1994–95 made for Ely theological college), an east window of 1873 by Heaton, Butler and Bayne (reset when the chancel was extended), and lady chapel and west windows by Percy Bacon. The single-light figure of St Barnabas in the vestry is an important early work by Morris and Co.

Benjamin Ferrey (1810–80) was a well-known Victorian church architect. He was a pupil of Auguste Charles Pugin and knew A W N Pugin well, later becoming his biographer (1861). He established independent practice around 1834 and served as diocesan architect to Bath and Wells from 1841 until his death. He was succeeded by his son Edmund Benjamin Ferrey (1845–1900).