Histon Baptist Church And Sunday School

Histon Baptist Church and Sunday School

This is a substantial Baptist church and school complex built on land donated by the prominent Chivers family. The church was designed by George Baines and constructed in 1899-1900, with the school added in 1901 by George and R.P. Baines. Around 1990, both buildings were linked by a new office, kitchen and courtyard extension.

Church

The church is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and a tile roof. It is positioned to the north, aligned east to west with its entrance facing east. The most distinctive feature is a three-stage campanile set forward at the north east angle. The campanile has flush stone bands and a moulded band beneath the upper stage, with a foundation stone inscribed "This memorial stone was laid by Mr Stephen Chivers June 29th 1899." It rises to a tall single light window with a blind two-light cusped opening in the upper stage, topped by a splayed corbel table and simple weathervane.

The church comprises a nave with south aisle, north and south transepts, and a canted apsidal west end. The east front features a five-light window under a tall buttress shaft to the south, set beneath a parapet, with a gable end cross above. A gabled canted porch with stepped angle buttresses contains a pair of vertically boarded doors on ornate iron hinges, under a traceried overlight. The nave contains three bays with two-light cusped windows in flush stone surrounds. The plain north transept has a three-light window with flush band. The south aisle has similar windows beneath a shaped parapet. The south transept is said to have been extended southwards and contains a three-light window between flush stone bands, with stone bands to the gable framing small vertical openings.

The west end is canted with spherical triangle windows on each face, each containing a trefoiled light. Northwest vestries with rectangular windows under ogival stone lintels adjoin this end. The church has a flat-roofed porch under a shaped parapet with a rectangular vertically boarded door in a stone surround. A separate lantern, reduced in height in the 1940s, has a tile-hung rectangular base with a cusped open timber lantern beneath a splayed tile roof. All roofs are tiled with ridge cresting; the church was reroofed around 2000.

The interior is arranged as an Anglican church with a stage at the west end and baptistery behind it. A pulpit is set into the stage. Rectangular rows of pews fill the space. The south aisle is supported on dark red marble shafts with stone stiff leaf capitals and bases. The roof structure is impressive: hammer beam roofs with pierced brackets rise on the south side from the arcade, and elsewhere from moulded stone corbels. The transept and apse have similar roof construction. The apse arch is moulded stone on deep, foliate stone corbels with foliate bosses. A pine dado runs around the interior. The baptistery is lined in grey marble and white glazed tiles with a robust iron balustrade with scrolled moulded rail. An octagonal stone pulpit with iron balustrade stands in the baptistery; though possibly a later introduction, it is sunk into the stage. The stage was extended into the church around 1953.

A small lobby at the east end contains a pair of part-glazed single doors in round-section timber architraves and a pair of inner lobby doors that fold back. The floor is polychrome tile with a boarded ceiling. The apse windows contain coloured glass by H.M. Brock of Cambridge, donated in 1929 in memory of John Chivers. An organ was donated in 1904 in memory of Stephen Chivers.

The vestry contains a moulded timber chimneypiece with Prince of Wales feathers and brown tile slips, part of an iron grate, and flanking cupboards with shaped heads. A plaque documents the church's history and donors. A former W.C., now a cupboard, is located to the west. Behind the baptistery is seventeenth-century oak panelling, donated in 1953 by the Chivers family from the demolished Impington Hall. The interior also contains a moveable table and set of chairs: three with pierced backs and two with plain curved backs.

Seating has been removed from the north transept and east end of the aisle.

School

The school is positioned to the south, also aligned east to west. It is built of red brick with stone dressings, tile hanging, and a tile roof. The building comprises an aisled hall aligned east-west, with a small schoolroom to the west and extended and altered rooms to the north and west.

The symmetrical west end has a three-light window with flush impost band set between offset buttress shafts. A curved, flat-roofed buttressed porch with embattled parapet projects from this end and contains a four-light horizontal window. Two rectangular doorways in moulded stone openings, each with a pair of vertically boarded doors with enriched strap hinges, provide access. The foundation stone is inscribed: "this stone was laid to the Glory of God April 8th 1901." A moulded stone band with crocketed finials runs above the doors. A gable end cross crowns the west gable. A ridge lantern with a rectangular tile-hung base and open cusped timber lantern under an ogival tile roof sits on the ridge, and ridge cresting decorates the tile roofs, which have exposed rafter feet.

The north and south elevations each contain four bays. The aisles have three-light rectangular stone windows with cusped lights, and the clerestorey is tile-hung with plain timber rectangular three-light windows. All windows have leaded lights with coloured glass panels. Angle buttresses occur at each corner.

The west schoolroom, aligned north-south with a lower roofline than the main hall, has a three-light south window under a hoodmould with flush impost and cill band. It retains the remains of a gable finial or cross. A tall square-sectioned rear stack with deep moulded collar and tall terracotta moulded shaft with moulded cap and base rises at one end. A hipped-roofed single storey wing, now kitchens, extends to the west. A tall rectangular stack with a pair of similar moulded terracotta shafts stands at the rear of the northern wing. The north wing has a single two-light window to the south; an altered window, now a door, in the former north wall retains its traceried head.

The interior contains a timber arcade of moulded shafts with slender open braced arches. Two western bays have been filled in but the arcade structure remains. A slender roof with false hammerbeams, supported on curved braced brackets, has a panelled ceiling with exposed purlins. A broad moulded depressed arch spans the west end; formerly open, it is now partitioned with inserted doors. A small east lobby contains a pair of inner doors to the hall; doors, now boarded over, are in similar round-sectioned architraves to those in the church lobby. The floor is polychrome tile.

The former schoolroom to the west, now a crèche room, has two bays with moulded brackets supporting a roof of exposed moulded timbers. Behind the main hall, a space with a coffered roof contains a plain three-light west window.

Significance

Stephen Chivers was Senior Deacon and Sunday School Superintendent. The church and school represent good quality work from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, designed by George Baines and his son R.P. Baines.