Former St Mark's Church (Brick Lane Music Hall)

Former St Mark's Church, now the Brick Lane Music Hall

This Grade II* listed building is a striking example of High Victorian Gothic architecture, designed by the architect Samuel Sanders Teulon and completed in the mid-19th century. The church has been substantially adapted for use as a music hall, retaining its original architectural character while accommodating modern performance and audience facilities.

The exterior is exceptionally striking in its polychromatic treatment. Buff terracotta forms the main facing material, laid in narrow bands with numerous lipped string-courses, using L-shaped blocks mounted on a toothed brick core wall through a cladding system patented in 1856 by the architect John Taylor Jr. Stock brick appears in the plinth, quoins, jambs and tumbling-courses, with alternating bands of red brick in the voussoirs and gable-heads. The roofs are of purple and grey slates laid in bands and diaper patterns—a feature reinstated during the 1980s restoration.

Teulon's design exemplifies his distinctive High Victorian Gothicism through extremely steep gables and roofs, acutely-pointed arches, and unmoulded stone bar tracery of idiosyncratic form. The bold juxtaposition of square, angular and rounded masses creates a powerful visual composition. The west front features two two-light lancets with pointed-quatrefoil heads, a large circular window formed of three interlocking trefoils, and a small oculus at the apex. Below sits a shallow gabled west porch with toothed brickwork, enclosing a shoulder-arched west doorway bearing a Star of David in the tympanum. The aisles have broad shoulder-arched three-light windows; the three clerestory windows above are extremely tall, their quatrefoil heads rising through the eaves-line to form gabled dormers. The deep south porch features stepped buttresses flanking an archway with two orders of colonettes, the inner arch carrying a cusped cinquefoil surround with fleur-de-lys terminations. The central tower is a top-heavy mass crowned by a steep pyramidal roof and an arcaded red-brick corbel-table, with belfry louvres and corresponding triangular windows rising into gabled dormers with intricate, quasi-Islamic tracery. A cylindrical stair-turret-cum-chimney-stack with a steep conical roof clasps the south-east corner. The semicircular apse features three tall two-light windows with sexfoil heads and a corbel-table matching the tower.

The plan comprises a five-bay aisled nave with a projecting south porch, a central tower over the chancel, and an apsidal sanctuary with flanking vestries. Octagonal stone columns support stone arcades with outer courses of red and yellow brick and black brick headers in the nave. The nave roof is a complex hammerbeam structure reinforced by decorative iron straps, faithfully renewed after a fire in 1981. The chancel and sanctuary arches support the tower and feature clusters of engaged shafts on huge projecting corbels. Double rows of acutely-pointed arches divide the chancel from the aisles. The apse roof is a complex assembly of flying ribs and curved wind-braces, with windows framed by elongated shafts.

In its present use as a music hall, the south aisle and west end of the nave function as the foyer, the body of the nave provides audience seating, and the north aisle serves as the bar. The chancel arch acts as the proscenium arch, with the stage occupying the chancel itself and dressing-rooms behind. The chancel ceiling was destroyed in the 1981 fire and not replaced, exposing the massive timbers of the roof and bell-frames overhead and allowing the tower to be used for flying scenery. A basement excavated during the 1980s restoration contains toilets and plant rooms. No original church fittings remain; current interior additions by the Brick Lane Music Hall include gaily-painted trompe l'oeil screens in the aisles, brass chandeliers and light-fittings in the nave, and a proscenium arch in the chancel with tasselled velvet curtains.