Church Of St Mary The Virgin

This substantial parish church represents successive periods of construction from the late medieval period to the late 20th century. The base of the west tower dates from the late 15th century, with recorded building dates of 1498 and 1512. The upper portion of the tower and the body of the church were rebuilt between 1774 and 1777 by local architect George Gibson junior. The interior was remodelled and a new chancel added in 1881–2 by Arthur William Blomfield. The chancel interior underwent a further reordering in 1995–6.

The church is built of coursed Kentish ragstone with freestone dressings. The chancel stonework is rock-faced. The roofs are covered in slate. The plan comprises a nave with west tower, chancel, north vestry, north transept, south chapel, south portico, and crypt.

Exterior

The principal façade faces south towards Lewisham High Street and is dominated by a large tetrastyle portico — a very unusual feature — positioned centrally on the nave and approached by six steps. The columns have stylised leaf decoration and the portico terminates in a plain pediment. The windows of the nave are arranged in two tiers, expressing the interior galleries, and disposed symmetrically about the portico. On either side of the portico on the ground floor are small openings under segmental heads, while the upper tier has large, plain round-headed windows. None of these windows have tracery.

The west tower incorporates medieval work below the clock and belfry stages. This early fabric features diagonal buttresses and a plain west doorway. Above the doorway is a three-light Perpendicular window — the 'grete new wyndowe' which was glazed under a bequest of Robert Cheseman in 1498. The medieval tower was of two stages and the now-redundant and blocked belfry windows remain visible. The tower was heightened during the 18th-century building works, receiving a narrow clock stage and a taller belfry stage whose openings are single, plain, and round-headed. The top of the tower is crowned by an ornamental band with swags, above which is a small plain parapet with balls at the corners.

The east end is the work of Blomfield from 1881–2. It is very tall and uses round-arched motifs, presumably to mirror the simple Georgian openings of the nave, but the overall effect is more of a heavy Romanesque character. The east wall has four openings to a crypt. Set above a stringcourse halfway up are three tall equal-height windows. Above these is a round window breaking into a pediment, which has a central circle surrounded by eight part circles. On the south side of the chancel is a tall transept with a pediment broken by three equal-height round windows.

On the north side of the church is a two-storey pedimented vestry dating from the 1770s campaign. It has windows of the same design as those on the ground floor of the nave. Against the south wall of the churchyard stands a stock brick chimney, presumably a remnant of a former heating system for the church.

Interior

The interior is the product of a major remodelling campaign in 1881–2 which was grafted onto the Georgian building. The volume of the nave remains as it was previously and the gallery fronts were retained, but the most striking change is the complex new roof and support arrangements for it and the galleries. Whereas the Georgian church had a plain, flat plaster ceiling, Blomfield placed flat, panelled ceilings over the gallery areas on both north and south sides, and inserted a low-pitched roof over the area of the nave in between. The cast-iron supports to the galleries were removed and replaced by wooden posts which rise through two storeys to support the roof at the junction between the flat and the pitched areas. The posts are used as the uprights for seven-bay arcading along the nave, with round arches placed between them. The pitched area of the roof has tie-beams above which there are arch-braces to the principal rafters. The galleries are supported on tie-beams between the outside walls and the vertical posts.

The exterior and interior rhythms of the nave do not correspond because the exterior has four bays whereas the interior, as divided by the timber arcading, has seven. There is a tall round arch to the chancel with a moulded head and rectangular responds. There are similar arches to the north transept and the south chapel except that the arches rise from corbels. The roof over the chancel is semi-circular and divided into square and rectangular panels.

The present appearance of the chancel is due to a remodelling in 1995–6. A new altar stands under the chancel arch on newly-inserted steps. Behind are further steps and behind these a wall. The space between the wall and the east end is used as a small chapel.

The floor level of the entire interior is considerably above the level of the churchyard and was raised during the 18th-century building works. This accounts for the flight of steps at the west end down into the base of the medieval tower.

Principal Fixtures

Apart from the monuments (see below), the most important survivals of the 18th-century building are the panelled gallery fronts. The seating in the galleries has been removed. That in the nave was installed in 1881–2 and has shaped ends.

The most ornate work from the 1881–2 restoration is that at the east end of the chancel. The east wall has a tripartite arrangement of a gabled central recess flanked by pairs of two-light arches, while the north and south walls have four bays of arcading. The recesses and the dado of the east wall have mosaic decoration — for example, with Old Testament figures in the north recesses — which dates from some years after the opening of the chancel in 1882. The east end is laid with encaustic tiles.

The pulpit is late 19th-century and is very tall, being placed on four granite shafts. The main panels have pairs of round-arched openings and figures set in the chamfered corners. The font is richly decorated with tendrils on its square bowl, diagonal moulding and beading on the central drum, and coloured marble shafts at the corners. An attractive wrought iron screen of 1881 has been resited on the low wall at the east end of the church.

Monuments

The church has many wall monuments, some of them of exceptional interest. That on the west wall of the nave north of the tower arch is to Anne Petrie (died 1787) and is by Van Pook of Brussels, in a simple frame, and shows a woman reclining on a couch with children at her feet and an allegorical female at her head. South of the tower arch is another simply framed monument to Margaret Petrie (died 1791) carved by Thomas Banks which forms a companion piece to the last monument: a dying woman lies on a couch attended by allegorical figures in Greek-style dress. On the north wall is John Flaxman's monument to Mary Lushington (died 1797) with two figures in a tympanum over a long inscription. Flaxman's pupil E H Baily carved the monument to John Thackeray (died 1851) in which an angel pulls aside drapery to reveal an inscription which is pointed out by a woman seated on the right.

History

A church has existed here since the late 11th century but the earliest surviving fabric dates from the end of the 15th century (base of the tower). Problems of damp and the need for increased accommodation led to a rebuilding in 1774–7 under local architect George Gibson junior. He lived in Lewisham in a house he designed for himself in 1773. He was well connected with City merchants and in 1774 the banker John Julius Angerstein employed him to design Woodlands House, Greenwich. The rebuilding work was funded by church rates, loans, and the letting of vaults and seating.

The next major change was just over one hundred years later when Arthur Blomfield was called in. The small round projection at the east end of the Georgian church was swept away by a large, tall, serious-minded chancel in a round-arched style which has little relation to the previous building. The cost of the chancel was borne by the Earl of Dartmouth. Blomfield also recast the nave with the complex new timber arcading and new treatment for the roof.

Arthur William Blomfield (1829–99) was the fourth son of Bishop Charles J Blomfield of London (bishop 1828–56). He was articled to P C Hardwick and began independent practice in 1856 in London. His early work is characterised by a strong muscular quality and the use of structural polychrome, often with continental influences. He became diocesan architect to Winchester, hence a large number of church-building commissions throughout the diocese. He was also architect to the Bank of England from 1883. Blomfield was knighted in 1889 and was awarded the RIBA's Royal Gold Medal in 1891.

A further century would elapse before the next major alterations. In 1995–6 the east end was reordered, new steps put in for a forward altar, and a small chapel created at the east end behind a low stone screen.