Church Hall Of St Hilda'S, Crofton Park

Church hall of St Hilda's, Crofton Park

This parish hall dates from 1899-1900 and was designed by JE Newberry as a mission church, serving as the precursor to the Church of St Hilda (Grade II), which was built 1905-08 by FH Greenaway and JE Newberry. The hall was extended after 1908 to provide Sunday schools.

The building is constructed of red brick with tile dressings and tile roofs. The plan comprises a large single hall set gable to the road, with lower rooms attached to the south east and a cross wing at the rear.

The main ranges feature battered brick buttresses. The lower range has a swept roof with deep eaves set lower than the main hall roofline, and the south gable is gambrelled. The main hall presents a symmetrical roadside elevation with a porched entrance flanked by two-light windows beneath a tile-hung gable containing a five-light window with a moulded transom and a small opening at the apex. The side elevations display three-light windows at lower level and half-hipped three-light dormers. Windows throughout have shaped heads and rectangular leaded lights; those at lower level sit in cambered openings beneath an arched hoodmould. Midway along the roof stands a timber lantern with a pitched tile roof. The southern range features a four-light east window similar to that above the entrance.

Internally, the main hall is spanned by a slender crown post roof supported on long wall posts rising from a panelled timber dado. The northern wall flanking the stage retains exposed framing. The sanctuary stairs survive under the stage. Later twentieth-century additions to the rear of the hall are not of special interest.

The mission church was built quickly and cheaply by JE Newberry, and unlike many mission churches which were absorbed into or replaced by later churches, this hall was clearly conceived as part of a larger group, as documented in The Builder magazine in 1908. The Church of St Hilda was the first of a group of churches built by the Greenaway and Newberry partnership for the Diocese of Southwark and is well regarded among Arts and Crafts Gothic churches in London.

FH Greenaway (1869-1935) was articled to Sir Aston Webb, while JE Newberry (1862-1950) was articled to Edward Hide. They entered into partnership in 1904. The work of both architects reflects the rich diversity in later nineteenth-century church architecture. Other early twentieth-century church work by Greenaway and Newberry includes the church hall at St Faith, Herne Hill, 1907; the enlargement of the medieval church of St Nicholas, Plumpstead, 1907-08 (Grade II); All Saints, Hampton, 1908 but completed later; St Peter Haydon's Road, Wimbledon, 1911-12 but incomplete; and St John the Baptist Sutton, 1915. After Greenaway retired in 1927, Newberry entered into partnership with CW Fowler and retired in 1946.