Church Of St Luke

The Church of St Luke is a church of 1856, designed by Ewan Christian, with minor later alterations. It is constructed of red brick with blue brick banding, and has a red tile roof with blue tile banding. Caen stone dressings are used, and the church is built in the English Decorated style.

The plan comprises a wide nave of five bays, with wide aisles to its sides. The nave terminates in a five-sided apsidal end, and the south aisle includes a chapel.

The west end features a wide gable roof incorporating the side aisles. A central window has reticulated tracery consisting of five trefoil-headed lights and multiple quatrefoils under a pointed arch, flanked by buttresses with stone copings and single trefoil-headed lights to each aisle. A wooden belfry with a pitched roof sits above. The north elevation has a deep sloping roof to western bays and three rectangular, cross-like windows with paired trefoil-headed lancets. An advanced single-story vestry is located to the east, featuring two trefoil-headed lights and a quatrefoil in stone surrounds, with a tall chimney stack in the centre. The east end has a five-sided apse, with each bay containing an attenuated window with a rounded trefoil-headed light and quatrefoil, set under a segmental roof. The south elevation mirrors the north, with a deep sloping roof to the west and a tall gable with a central window, though shorter, incorporating a door with an ogee head and a window with two trefoil-headed lights and a quatrefoil. An original entrance was formerly located on the west end of this elevation, but the porch has been removed and incorporated into a 1970s extension from the southwest corner.

Inside, the ceiling is supported by wooden ribs and three king post trusses. Chevron brick detailing is visible below the nave ceiling. Red and yellow banded brick arches and piers have stone capitals supporting the nave arcade. The west windows were destroyed in a 1942 bomb blast and replaced in 1951 with a design by A.K. Nicholson. A south aisle window depicts Our Lady holding Baby Jesus, dated 1908. Five stone panels, displaying the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Apostle’s Creed, are located at the west end. There is a stone font and a pulpit by Ernest Geldhart, dating to 1906. Oak choir stalls were designed by Bryan Saunders of Coggeshall in 1934. The east end window, with five lights, depicts the life of Christ, and is set within brick and stone pointed arch headers. The floor is of brown and black tiles, and original wooden pews remain.