Church Of St Luke And Attached Walls And Gate Piers To Churchyard

This is an Anglican church, built approximately between 1859 and 1860, with a north transept destroyed in the Second World War and replaced in 1961. It was designed by Charles Lee. The church is constructed primarily of Kentish ragstone with Bath stone dressings. It comprises a chancel, nave, north and south transepts, north and south aisles, a south porch, and a north-west tower.

The east window is pointed-arched with five lights and curvilinear tracery. The rebuilt north transept features a similar main window, while other windows are flat-arched. Aisle windows are set between buttresses, featuring two trefoiled lights. The building has a corbelled parapet and clerestory windows which are four-centred with two trefoiled lights, with a more recent 20th-century dormer included in the north aisle roof. The west window is pointed-arched with five lights and curvilinear tracery, with a trefoiled spherical triangle above the gable. The gabled south porch also features trefoiled details.

The tower has a gabled, stone-roofed porch with pointed-arched openings, decorated with many shafts, kneeling angels, and a low-relief carving on the tympanum. It rises in three stages; the buttresses are gabled at the first stage, set back at the second, and gabled again at the third. A stair tower is situated in the north-east corner. Decorative features include a cusped Lombard frieze and ballflower ornament to the eaves. The broach spire has two-light lucarnes and short gabled buttresses on its alternate octagonal faces.

Low stone gate piers mark the corner of Hillmarton Road and Penn Road, featuring gables, buttresses, and pierced quatrefoil decoration; some finials are now missing. Additional, smaller gabled piers with quatrefoil decoration are positioned on either side. The churchyard walls are constructed of random rubble with coping, extending approximately 30 metres along Hillmarton Road and 50 metres along Penn Road.

The interior now consists of the chancel, nave, south transept, and north porch, with the remaining areas partitioned for office and church use. The chancel arch has a double chamfer and a chamfered inner order, supported by corbelled colonnettes. The chancel floor is covered in marble and extends into the nave. The four-bay arcade to the nave has a double chamfer and a continuous hoodmould with ballflower stops. A large, panelled organ is situated in the south transept, retaining original painted decoration on the pipework. A font at the west end is square in plan and rests on clustered quadruple colonnettes decorated with emblems of the Evangelists. The chancel has a panelled roof, while the nave roof features arched braces carried on corbelled colonnettes.