Church Of Our Most Holy Redeemer, Clergy House, Campanile And Parish Hall

Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer, Clergy House, Campanile and Parish Hall

A church with attached clergy house, campanile, and parish hall located on the south side of Exmouth Market in Islington.

The church was built between 1887 and 1888, designed by John Dando Sedling and completed by Henry Wilson. The clergy house, parish hall, campanile, and Lady Chapel were added between 1892 and 1906, with the Chapel of All Souls completed in 1921 by Wilson. Sculptural carving to the interior was executed by F W Pomeroy.

The buildings are constructed in buff stock brick set in English bond with finely cut rubbed red brick and stone bands and dressings, and red-tile dressings. Various Welsh-slate roofs cover the structures: the church has a gabled roof with projecting eaves, the clergy house a half-hipped roof, the parish hall a gable facing, and the campanile a hipped roof with projecting eaves.

The church follows a free cross-plan with narrow side aisles and diminutive transepts. The interior was lengthened by Wilson with a Lady Chapel extending eastward behind the Baldacchino. The style is pure Italian Renaissance. The symmetrical front facade features a round-arched doorway set into the centre of the solid brick wall at ground level, with wooden panelled double doors and rectangular overlights flanked by pairs of stone pilasters carrying an entablature and surmounted by a moulded-stone extrados to a finely-cut rubbed red-brick tympanum. A stone cornice at midpoint carries an inscribed frieze in giant letters reading "CHRISTO LIBERATOR". Red brick and stone banding decorates the first stage, with a wheel window to the centre featuring intricate curved and radial leaded glazing bars and a moulded stone surround. Above rises a giant pediment with wide projecting bracketed eaves and finely cut low-relief carving to the tympanum. The continuation of banded decoration appears on the upper stage of the left-hand return wall, which displays the same wheel window as the front. The right-hand return wall is partially obscured by the campanile but has identical detailing. The buildings flanking the front facade, on the left the parish hall and on the right the clergy house with its projecting campanile, are detailed in a subtle Italian Romanesque style.

The parish hall breaks forward slightly. It is two storeys tall with a one-window range of five lights with modillions set in a brick recess to the centre. The main entrance opens to a small covered porch to the right-hand return wall, with a secondary single-storey entrance to the far left front facade; both have round-arched heads. Finely detailed tile extradoses, imposts, decorative tympana, and banding feature throughout, with stone coping above the left entrance.

The clergy house breaks forward slightly and rises four storeys, with a two-window range plus a one-window range to the left-hand return wall. A round-arched entrance opens to the return. Sashes in proportions of 6/6, 4/4, and 2/2 have round-arched heads with fine tile extradoses, stone imposts, and sill bands; windows to the ground and fourth floors have flat arches. A cornice and tile coping to a brick parapet complete the exterior.

The campanile breaks well forward to the southwest corner, almost square in plan and partially obscured by other buildings. It comprises five stages with various round-arched coupled openings (except the first stage, which has only a single opening), with sashes to the ground, first, second, and third stages; other stages are open. All openings feature finely-cut tiled or brick extradoses, stone imposts, and sill bands.

The interior of the church is rendered in Renaissance style. Colonnades of lavish giant Corinthian columns with panelled pedestals carry an unbroken entablature supporting four groined vaults. The column capitals were carved by sculptor F W Pomeroy. A free-standing Baldacchino forms the high altar at the east end, modelled on that of Santo Spirito in Florence. Sedding's plans for frescoed walls were never carried out and the surfaces remain plain. Wilson was responsible for most of the existing interior furnishings, including the font of 1909, floors of marble, and details within the Lady Chapel, which were created in collaboration with Sedding's son. The Chapel of All Souls contains a reredos presented by Wilson, cast from the chapel at Welbeck Abbey (1906). The glass is plain. Stations of the Cross by the Martin Travers studio and an organ from the Chapel Royal at Windsor Castle, installed in 1889, complete the furnishings. Iron railings are attached to the front elevation.

Historical Context

The church was consecrated in 1888 but never completed as originally designed in 1887. Sedding died very young in 1891, and the building was completed by his assistant Henry Wilson. Wilson submitted plans in 1892 that included extending the building eastward behind the Baldacchino, executed in 1894-1895. An appeal was established in 1901 to fund the remaining buildings, which were completed by 1906.

This church is of outstanding importance as an example of the late nineteenth-century reaction against High Victorian Gothic. Sedding achieved this through the use of pure Italian Renaissance style, creating not only a monument to the Aestheticism of late Victorian Anglo-Catholicism but also a church with a notably Roman Catholic appearance. Wilson's work to the church is particularly fine, and his interesting subsidiary buildings—the parish hall, clergy house, and especially the campanile—flanking the front facade are extremely clever and idiosyncratic. Built in the heart of a significant Italian community, these buildings form a remarkable architectural group.