Church of St Bede and Institute

Church of St Bede and Institute

A church and institute designed by Edward Brantwood Maufe for the Royal Association in aid of the Deaf and Dumb. The institute was completed in 1924, the church in 1935, on the site of two former villas on the west side of Clapham Road. The building is constructed in brown Hackenden brick with Clipsham stone dressings.

The structure is organised vertically, with the institute occupying the lower ground floor and the church above. A small entrance hall on the main east front receives visitors, with twin flights of stairs descending to the institute and ascending to the church. The church is reverse-oriented, with its entrance to the east and high altar at the western end. It consists of a broad aisleless nave with a narrower raised chancel and short sanctuary. A Lady chapel projects to the south and a vestry to the north. Beneath the nave lies the institute's main hall, with a projection room at the rear and raised stage at the front below the chancel. The remaining spaces originally comprised kitchens, offices and a billiard room.

The exterior displays Maufe's characteristic pared-down Gothic manner, influenced by contemporary Scandinavian church design such as Ivar Tengbom's Högalidskyrkan in Stockholm, with affinities to contemporary British work by Charles Holden, Giles Gilbert Scott and others. The institute building forms a low podium with simple mullioned windows, flat roofs and stepped ziggurat-like massing, particularly emphatic around the main east doorway—a segmental brick arch with splayed sides and sturdy oak doors. The rainwater heads bear the date 1924, the initials SB and a sunburst emblem.

The church rises from the podium as a sheer rectangular mass. Its east front contains a tall three-light window with stylised Gothic tracery featuring prominent crosses in the upper lights, framed by shallow pilaster-buttresses and a low-pitched gable. The flanks are sheer brick with slender two-light windows. Transept-like projections, taller than the institute but lower than the church, house the Lady chapel and vestry. Canted walls mark the transition to the narrower chancel, whose blind end wall features a simple relief cross.

The entrance hall is a double-height space with a rib-vaulted ceiling. Twin flights of stone stairs ascend via small landings and switch-backs to the church entrance, which has double hardwood doors with cruciform windows inset.

The church itself is a single tall volume approximately 60 feet long. Its design reflects an order of service whose principal medium is visual rather than auditory; recurrent solar and stellar imagery acknowledges this fact, while also invoking the 'light from heaven' motif—a symbol of St Bede. Internal walls are whitewashed brick with tall, deeply recessed windows and a wood-block floor slightly raked from east to west to provide clear sightlines for the entire congregation. The windows are of translucent white glass to minimise glare. The east window features a five-pointed star at the apex of each main light, while the north and south windows display little sunbursts. Above is a polygonal boarded roof with king-post trusses, painted green, pink and blue and enriched with gold crowns and stars. Hanging from it are reflective light-fittings in the form of golden sunbursts. Over the entrance is a shallow gallery with a plaster front bearing a triple wave motif and a soffit set with star-shaped lights. Beneath the gallery are built-in bookshelves and an octagonal stone font with a relief carving of a fish by sculptor Vernon Hill.

A double archway to the left of the chancel steps opens into the Lady chapel, which has a vaulted ceiling and three-light shoulder-arched windows. The altar sits in a shallow pointed recess containing a tiny star-shaped window. Altar rails with turned oak balusters have their mouldings picked out in gold. A corresponding doorway leads to the vestry, which has been damaged by fire but retains its plaster ceiling and built-in cupboards.

The transition from broad nave to narrower chancel is formed by canted wall sections and marked at ground level by four steps of polished travertine, which also form the chancel floor. These rise between twin polygonal ambones or pulpits—one for the preacher and one for a sign-language interpreter. These can be illuminated by spot-lights concealed in the walls. On either side are oak clergy stalls with tall shaped backs emblazoned with gold chi-rho monograms. The ceiling over the short sanctuary is painted with a golden sunburst. At the sanctuary step are oak altar rails with a repeating design of gilt crosses. Behind, in place of a window, is a shallow arched recess hung with a very long green dossal curtain.

The institute hall occupies the space immediately beneath the church, with a sloping ceiling corresponding to the raked floor above. The hall floor is of wood blocks with a raised proscenium-arch stage at one end. The original strap-hinged internal doors survive here and in other rooms; other fittings and finishes are utilitarian. The projection room, accessed directly from the entrance hall, retains its original sliding shutters.

The site boundary to Clapham Road is marked by sturdy iron railings with cross finials and square brick piers. In the centre is a little gate bearing a star-and-saltire motif. These boundary features are included in the listing.