St Dionis' Mission Hall

MATERIALS: red brick with stone bands and dressings beneath a clay tile roof.

PLAN: originally a single tall space with a small narthex to the west and further entrances to the south. Now subdivided horizontally to form upper and lower halls with toilets, kitchen etc.

EXTERIOR: the style is early French Gothic, typifying the 'muscular' variety of High Victorian ecclesiastical design. The south front to St Dionis Road is nearly symmetrical, with two bays of paired lancets on either side of the main door, the latter very grandly treated with stiff-leaf pilasters supporting a pointed arch surmounted by a crocketed gable and panels of incised ornament. Above, a tall two-light window with a ringed central shaft and a pierced quatrefoil head breaks through the eaves into a steep gabled half-dormer. To the left is a smaller door, also set beneath a crocketed gable. The gabled west front to Parsons Green has three stepped lancets with pierced quatrefoil heads linked by a hood-mould and a flush stone band. The lean-to narthex below is a miniature version of the south front, with a central two-light window and gabled half-dormer.

INTERIOR: a five-bay open hall (now subdivided horizontally) with wall-shafts attached to internal buttresses, rising to stiff-leaf capitals which support the principal members of a scissor-truss roof. The external stone banding runs right through the walls and is visible within as well as without, although the interior brickwork has been painted. At the wall-head is a frieze of pierced quatrefoils containing stencil decoration. At the east end, a broad stone arch encloses the sanctuary recess; its flanking colonettes have capitals linked to those of the wall-shafts by a continuous band of stiff-leaf carving.