Church Of St Olave

Church of St Olave, Woodberry Down

This parish church was built in 1893 to designs by the notable Victorian architect Ewan Christian. It was constructed using proceeds from the sale of St Olave, Old Jewry, a City church that had recently been demolished, and incorporates several furnishings brought from that building.

The church is built of red brick with Bath stone dressings and has a slate roof. The plan comprises a wide, high nave with lower passage aisles, low transepts, and a prominent chancel with an apse. A tower with a small spire stands at the west end, with a south porch providing additional access.

The exterior is finished in 13th-century style. The west end features a central triple lancet window flanked by buttresses and lower lancets. The nave is lit by high lancet windows with continuous hood moulds. The south transept has triple lancets, whilst the south porch displays ornamental brickwork to a pointed archway with a pair of timber doors. The prominent chancel apse at the east end has a steeply pitched hipped slate roof with polychrome banding. A polygonal stair tower to the north-east has a conical roof and an upper stone stage with lancets.

The interior is strikingly spacious, with a high barrel-vaulted nave lined in red brick. The nave piers alternate between square and circular plans. Alternate piers at the nave, crossing, and imposts of relieving arches are of stone rather than brick. A tall crossing arch opens to a side chapel to the north. The apse is marked by seven single lancets with coloured glass dated 1893 and 1897 by Powell, flanked by stone colonettes. The apse roof features gilded ribs on corbelled blocks.

Furnishings transferred from St Olave, Old Jewry include wainscoting forming a reredos in the Lady Chapel, a 17th-century carved pulpit, a marble font with four angel heads on a column stem with acanthus leaf base, a wrought-iron lectern and desk. A 1914-18 war memorial stands at the west end. The church contains no fitted seating except for four plain pews. A 20th-century altar rail is present. The building retains a good collection of stained glass beyond the apse windows, including other windows dated 1903-17.

The church was designed to accommodate a congregation of 700. A temporary iron church was initially constructed on an adjacent site; this was retained and extended as a parish room in 1896, then redeveloped as part of a new institute in 1926. The nave was cleared for multi-purpose use during a reordering in 1994-5.