Church of St Cuthbert and St Matthias

Church of St Cuthbert and St Matthias, Grade I

The Church of St Cuthbert and St Matthias is a parish church built between 1884 and 1887 to designs by Hugh Roumieu Gough, with extensive embellishments added between 1887 and 1910 by William Bainbridge Reynolds, Ernest Geldart, J Harold Gibbons and others.

Materials and Construction

The exterior is constructed of red brick with Bath stone dressings and a Westmoreland slate roof, which was replaced around 2000. The interior was originally brick-faced, with piers of Belgian and Ashburton marble. The internal walls were later clad with Ashburton marble revetments and carved stone diaper-work.

Plan

The church consists of a five-bay aisled nave with a small projecting baptistery at the west end. The chancel has two bays with a Lady chapel to the south, an organ loft and sacristy to the north, and church rooms in the crypt below.

Exterior

The architectural style is an austere late 12th-century Gothic. The sheer brick walls are punctuated by plain lancets in the aisles and paired two-light Geometric Gothic windows in the tall clerestory.

The east front faces the street and, in place of a conventional east window, features a large arched recess containing two tiers of trefoil-headed niches. Of the intended programme of statuary, only one figure was ever completed: St Gregory in the lower right position, carved in 1908 by Gilbert Boulton of Cheltenham. The recess is flanked by octagonal turrets terminating in massive stone pinnacles. The gable end between them is enriched with diaper-work and crockets. Below is the foundation stone, brought from Holy Island and inscribed "A. M. D. G." (ad majorem Dei gloriam, meaning "to the greater glory of God") with the date 2nd July 1884. To the left stands the polygonal apse of the Lady chapel, before which is positioned a wooden Calvary group by J Harold Gibbons. On the roof-ridge above rises a tall, copper-clad timber flèche with two open stages and a crocketed spire.

The plain west front with its three tall lancets overlooks the railway cutting. A substantial stone bellcote was removed from the gable after the Second World War.

Interior

The lofty nave is modelled on Tintern Abbey in Monmouthshire, one of the great Cistercian monastery churches that Gough particularly admired. The arcades have quatrefoil piers of coloured Ashburton marble, above which are canopied niches containing statues of saints by Boulton. The tall clerestory has deep paired window recesses framed by triple engaged shafts. The ceiling is an acutely-pointed timber barrel vault (the initial proposal for stone vaulting having been abandoned on grounds of cost) with moulded ribs springing from slender wall-shafts.

The arcade continues round the west end, with the central arch opening into the semi-circular baptistery. The piers here are of black Belgian marble—the intended material for the nave arcades before the supply ran out—and have heavy dogtooth ornament between the shafts. Above, three crocketed gables rise into the west window, in front of which runs a narrow gallery accessed from the clergy house.

The aisle windows are single lancets set in deep cinquefoil-headed reveals. The outer walls, originally of bare brick, were clad by the Guild of St Peter in coloured marble revetments with carved stone diaper-work above. The diaper-work was copied from a variety of medieval sources ranging from Ravenna (in the baptistery) to Melrose (south aisle) and Kirkwall (west end of nave).

The wall decoration reaches its most elaborate expression in the Lady chapel, which features ogee-headed statue niches, heraldic mosaic-work in the window reveals and, in the apse, a flock of amorini (winged cherub-heads) carved to a design by the Italian sculptor Andrea Lucchesi. The ceiling here bears a painted depiction of the Virgin and Child with angels by Julia Allen.

The division between nave and chancel is marked by a double ceiling rib and by the great timber rood-beam (described below under Fittings). The chancel itself, approached by three steps from the nave, is floored in Tenos and Connemara marble and has large double arches opening north and south into the organ chamber and Lady chapel. The sanctuary walls are sheathed in green marble with gold mosaic florets and scrolls, these mosaics having been executed by the Guild of St Joseph. The windowless east wall is dominated by Reynolds' high altar and Geldart's gigantic reredos (described below).

Fittings

The fittings form one of the most lavish and consistent schemes in any Victorian church. Apart from the font, pulpit and sedilia (designed by Gough and carved by Harry Hems and the Polish sculptor Felix de Sziemanowicz), they all post-date the consecration of the church in November 1887, and belong to the great programme of embellishment that continued into the early 1900s.

In the baptistery stands Gough's octagonal seven-sacrament font of 1887 with its elaborate oak cover. The windows contain stained glass of 1888 by C E Kempe. In front are semicircular iron screens of 1905 by Reynolds, with fleur-de-lys finials and ribbon-like text. Hanging above is a gilded representation of the Holy Spirit, also by Reynolds. In the blind arch to the left of the baptistery is a clock of 1898, again by Reynolds, with gold numerals on blue enamel discs.

In the nave stands Gough's massive pulpit of 1887, positioned—in the Continental manner—halfway down the left-hand side rather than at the chancel steps. Of Caen stone with a balustrade of orange marble colonettes, it has twin curving staircases and a large bowed front, and is embellished with a thick band of leaf carving and a series of portrait miniatures depicting John Keble, E B Pusey and other leaders of the Anglo-Catholic Revival. The oak canopy of 1907 is by J Harold Gibbons.

Opposite is Reynolds' extraordinary, quasi-Art Nouveau lectern of 1897, of wrought iron with decorative panels of stamped, pierced, incised and beaten copper. From a stepped base emblazoned with the arms of the provinces of Canterbury and York rises an octagonal central shaft from which two sinewy arms branch out to support hexagonal candle-sconces set with angels and scrolls. The reading desk or penthouse is two-sided and revolvable, with leather supports on each side to accommodate separate Old and New Testaments. The latter are represented in turn by repoussé roundels in the gable ends showing, respectively, the Fall of Man and the Crucifixion. These are encircled by twisting rope-like ornament that resolves itself at one end into the coils of the Serpent, and at the other into the Instruments of the Passion. The whole ensemble is topped by a statuette of St John the Baptist.

Hanging in the south arcade are the Royal Arms of 1904, Reynolds' interpretation in gilded and enamelled metalwork of the painted wooden hatchments of the 17th and 18th centuries. Along with the stained glass in the clerestory above depicting Saints George, Andrew, David and Patrick (by Kempe's pupil Charles Tute), they form a memorial to Queen Victoria. The clerestory glass was badly damaged during the Second World War. Other surviving windows are by Tute, Reynolds, Burlison and Grylls and Percy Bacon Brothers.

The aisles contain various statues and paintings, including a set of Stations of the Cross of 1888 by Franz Vinck of Antwerp, and have stained glass by Tute depicting scenes from the life of St Cuthbert. Both aisles terminate in iron and copper screens of 1895 to 1904 by Reynolds. That in the north aisle, leading to the organ chamber, was given in memory of the Reverend William Teale, and its uprights accordingly bear thirty-six miniature representations of teals. The south aisle screen leads to the Lady chapel and has Marian monograms picked out in blue and gold. The Lady chapel itself contains a reredos of 1908 by J Harold Gibbons and post-war stained glass of 1947 to 1960 by Hugh Easton, replacing Kempe's original windows that were destroyed in the Second World War.

Above the chancel steps is the great carved and embattled rood beam, part of Gough's original design but not erected until 1893. The figure of the Crucified Christ is copied from the Capilla Real at Granada Cathedral in Spain. A gilded inscription reads: "Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis" (John 1:14: "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us"). The rood loft contains a small oratory where the Blessed Sacrament was formerly reserved.

Immediately below are two clergy stalls of 1891 and 1899 by Boulton, with tall Gothic canopies bearing statues of St Cuthbert and the Venerable Bede. The vicar's stall on the right has as its misericord an ass-eared caricature of the Protestant agitator John Kensit, who attempted to disrupt Westall's Good Friday service in 1898. The oak choir stalls of 1896 to 1901 were made by the Guild of St Joseph and have carved back panels and misericords copied from various medieval originals.

Behind these are Reynolds' screens to the organ chamber and Lady chapel, continuous with those in the aisles but here with paintings incorporated into the ironwork. Those in the organ screen—which, like the organ itself (a cathedral-sized four-manual instrument by A Hunter and Son, installed in 1900), extends up into the clerestory—are gesso panels by R G Crawford depicting figures associated with the development of the liturgy, including King David, St Gregory and St Ambrose. The freestanding Pascal candlestick of 1905 is by Reynolds.

The decorative scheme culminates in the sanctuary. At the steps are Reynolds' Cinquecento-style communion rails of 1905, in steel, brass and copper with symbols of the Passion. These are complemented by two tall bronze candlesticks of 1904 with elaborate figure sculpture, copies of Renaissance originals in the Certosa di Pavia in Lombardy. To the right are Gough's richly-carved stone sedilia and piscina of 1887 to 1888, embellished with mosaics by the Guild of St Joseph.

The east wall marks the final crescendo. By Reynolds are the gilded copper high altar frontal of 1910 and tabernacle of 1933 (his last work), but the overwhelmingly dominant feature is the immense reredos, designed by Ernest Geldart in 1899 and realised by Boulton (with the carvers Taylor and Clifton) in 1913 to 1914. Inspired by medieval Spanish altarpieces, it forms a 50-foot cliff of carved woodwork in a flamboyant late-Gothic style, organised architecturally into a broad centrepiece flanked by great octagonal turrets and side panels. The sculptural programme, fittingly for a church of this character, concerns the worship of the Incarnate God with incense and lights. The centre panel shows Our Lord with censing angels and the symbols of the four evangelists. The other panels depict appropriate biblical scenes with accompanying text. The turrets contain statues of the four Latin Doctors and the four major Prophets, along with numerous smaller figures of saints. The whole is crowned by a representation of the Virgin and Child in glory with angel attendants.

Subsidiary Features

In front of the apse of the Lady Chapel at the south-east corner of the site stands a free-standing wooden Calvary or Crucifixion by J Harold Gibbons.