Church Of St Mellitus And Attached Presbytery

The Church of St Mellitus and attached presbytery was built in 1871 by C.G.Searle as a New Court Congregational Church, and is now a Roman Catholic church. It is constructed of yellow brick in Flemish bond, with stone dressings and a roof obscured by a parapet. The principal elevation, facing Tollington Park, has a giant tetrastyle Corinthian portico with a full entablature, dentil and modillion cornice, and an oculus with elaborate foliage in the tympanum of the pediment. The portico frames three flat-arched entrances with moulded stone architraves, consoles, segmental pediments, and original panelled doors, each with a keyed oculus above. The outer bays have flat-arched windows with moulded stone architraves, the lower ones with keystones linking to the bracketed sills of the round-arched, eared and shouldered windows above. An entablature extends over these bays and to the first bay of the return, where there is a balustraded parapet to the outer bays, stepped up behind the portico. The first bay of the return is similarly detailed to the outer bays of the front, while the rest of the Evershot Road return features giant Doric pilasters with two tiers of windows with moulded stone architraves and keystones, the lower windows flat-arched, and the upper round-arched. A brick dentil cornice runs to the parapet, and the north return is less ornate. An ancillary building to the east end, now the presbytery, is likely contemporary with the church and is three storeys over a basement, with a five-window range. It has plain stone architraves to segmental-arched windows on the ground and first floors, and round-arched windows on the second floor, with an external stack between the fourth and fifth bays. Two wrought iron scrolled lamp pendants are positioned between the west entrances to the church, and there are elaborate lamp standards with columns flanking the steps up to the portico. The interior is a single, galleried space, with an aedicule at the east end formed by giant Corinthian columns in antis, supporting an entablature with a dentil and modillion cornice. A curved gallery is supported by cast-iron Corinthian columns with elaborate ironwork to the balcony, and the roof is panelled and coved to the centre, with late 19th-century wrought-iron lighting pendants.