Church of St Luke

CHURCH OF ST LUKE

This is a mid-Victorian Gothic Revival church completed in 1871–2 by the London architects Newman and Billing, with the steeple added in 1882. The church was built to serve St Barnabas' parish in a densely populated and economically deprived area of East London. The site was given by the governors of St Thomas's Hospital, and the church was consecrated on 8 November 1872. The builders were Dove Brothers. Completion of the steeple was delayed for ten years due to funding constraints.

The architects Arthur Shean Newman (1828–73) and Arthur Billing (1824–96) had been in partnership in London from around 1860 and specialised in church work, chiefly in the capital. They also served as surveyors to Guy's Hospital and to St Olave's District Board of Works. Newman died in 1873; Billing subsequently took his son into partnership in 1890. Billing had previously worked in the office of Benjamin Ferrey, the renowned Gothic Revival architect, from 1847, before establishing independent practice in 1849.

The church was intended to provide worship for around 12,000 people described as "mostly of the poorest class" in the parish application. It was designed to accommodate 750 seats, half of them free. Funding of £1,500 came from the Bishop of London's Church-Building Fund, with a total estimated cost of £6,598.

The building is constructed of ragstone rubble with freestone dressings and Welsh slate roofs with crested clay ridge tiles. It adopts the architectural style of around 1300 to early 14th century and stands on a corner site, with the east end and south side directly adjoining adjacent roads.

The plan comprises a nave, lower chancel, north and south aisles, a southwest steeple, a south vestry, and a north organ chamber. The most prominent external feature is the southwest steeple with three stages to the tower and a stone broach spire above. The ground stage of the tower serves as a porch. At the tower corners are angle buttresses; the southwest corner has an octagonal stair turret rising to an open-work top above the tower eaves, surmounted by an octagonal capping. The belfry stage contains pairs of tall louvred lancets. The spire has one tier of lucarnes. The aisles have lean-to roofs and low side walls with two- and three-light windows. The north side has five bays and the south side has four (reduced by the tower). Each nave bay has a pair of foiled circular clerestory windows. The north aisle has a north entrance with a gable breaking into the roofline. Large Geometrical windows occupy the west end (four lights) and east end (five lights).

The interior walls are plastered and whitened, with piers and their capitals also painted. The piers are round with richly carved foliage capitals and moulded bases. The arches are of two orders, with a sunk moulding in the outer one and a roll-moulding at the arris of the underside. Each clerestory bay has shafting to the sides and a central shaft with foliage capital. The chancel arch is similar but more elaborate, rising from a shaft placed upon an angel corbel. The nave roof is arch-braced with scissor bracing above the main trusses. The chancel roof is keeled with longitudinal boarding. A tiered gallery on iron columns occupies the west end and has been partitioned to house ancillary facilities. The two middle bays of the aisles have flexible screening to allow further rooms to be created as needed.

The east end features an arcade of gabled cusped arches across the east wall containing painted texts of the Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments, flanking a central panel of the Last Supper. The double sedilia and piscina on the south of the sanctuary and the aumbry on the north follow a similar style. Further Victorian work at the east end includes a richly carved wooden altar, altar rails, and coloured tiling in the sanctuary. The stone pulpit has pierced sides and Gothic detail. Victorian seating has been replaced by modern chairs. Late 19th and early 20th century stained glass appears in several windows; the east window dates from 1950 and is by H Vernon Spreadbury.