Church of St Luke with St Paul

Church of St Luke with St Paul

This church was built between 1867 and 1869 and designed by the architect Basil Champneys. It is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and has a tiled roof. The style combines Early English architectural detail with a tower influenced by North German design.

The building comprises a nave of four bays with narrow lean-to aisles on either side, two porches, a chancel with a tower above it, a south chapel, and a north organ chamber. A buttressed polygonal apse with a vestry extends from the east end. The most distinctive external feature is the buttressed tower at the crossing, topped with a saddleback roof, which serves as a landmark. The west end is gabled and features three lancets and a plate tracery rose window. The aisle windows are pointed and paired, with a continuous stone band at impost level, and the apse is lit by plate tracery windows. The tower has three arcaded openings to the belfry and a plate tracery round opening above on each face.

Inside, the nave arcades consist of cylindrical pillars with moulded bases and capitals supporting moulded arches. Between the arches, hafts on corbels rise to the wall plates and carry the principal roof timbers. The roof is ceiled with panels of timber boarding divided by moulded ribs. Clerestory windows sit within plain reveals with central detached shafts, while the west windows are unified into a single composition by a shafted arch. The floor is paved with red and black tiles, and all wall surfaces are of exposed red brick, interrupted by a stone band in the aisles and another in the gallery, both positioned at the level where the window arches spring.

The crossing rises three steps above the nave and features tall arches to east and west with plain chamfered outer orders and inner moulded orders supported on paired colonnettes with moulded capitals and bases. The crossing and sanctuary are covered by brick vaults carried on moulded ribs and shafts in the angles, with a circular bellway of stone at the centre. The upper walls are enriched by blind arcading. A south chapel opens via a door to the sacristy and is decorated with ironwork and chevron painting to the roof.

The sanctuary rises six more steps and is paved with medieval-style decorative tiles. It contains a reredos, added around 1932. A credence of alabaster sits under a trefoiled arch, and sedilia in the south wall step up towards the east with small vaults within triangular arches. A brass eagle lectern, dated 1882 and originally from St Paul's Camden Square, stands in the church. The font is octagonal with an oak cover. Oak pews furnish the nave. A Willis organ was installed in 1893.

The stained glass is particularly notable. The three east windows date to 1868 and were designed by H Holiday for Heaton, Butler and Bayne, depicting St Paul and St Mary; Christ Arising, Christ Ascending and The Creation; and St Mary Magdalene and St Luke. Clerestory windows in the chancel were added in 1895. The aisles contain a series of windows depicting the twelve apostles, all produced around 1880-90 by Heaton, Butler and Bayne. Four windows in the south clerestory were created by William Morris and Company in 1910, featuring designs of Sts Alphege and Edward the Confessor taken from figures by Burne-Jones, and Sts Thomas of Canterbury and Hugh of Lincoln from designs by Henry Dearle; these were painted by Glasby and Burrows. The west window shows the Archangels Gabriel, Michael and Raphael under a circular composition depicting Angels with Musical Instruments adoring the Lamb of God, all created by Heaton, Butler and Bayne in 1891. The sacristy east window depicts the Annunciation in silver stain, dating to around 1880.

St Luke's Church was constructed with funding from the Midland Railway to replace an earlier church of the same name on the Euston Road, which had been demolished as part of the railway's compulsory land clearances for new railway lines. This was one of the earliest commissions received by architect Basil Champneys, the notable Queen Anne designer. He was appointed by his father, Reverend W W Champneys, vicar of St Pancras parish, though the commission arose not without some friction, given that Champneys junior was replacing the work of the previous church's architect.