Church Of St Paul

The Church of St Paul is a Grade II* listed building located in Herne Hill, Southwark, constructed in 1858 by the architect George Edmund Street. This church was a rebuilding of an earlier church from 1843-1844, which was designed by G. Alexander and built by Holland and Hannen, but was damaged by fire. The church is built of coursed rubble with ashlar quoins and dressings, topped with a pitched slate roof, and is designed in the Early English style.

The layout features a long five-bay nave with a western Perpendicular tower, which is part of the original church. There are side aisles with lean-to roofs, and the chancel is slightly lower, extending east from the nave, with a vestry to the north and an organ chamber to the south. The tower is distinguished by stepped corner buttresses and has an entrance beneath a tall traceried window, with twin bell openings above. The spire is adorned with flying corner buttresses and pinnacles. The east window is large and decorated with stained glass, while the ground-floor windows feature plate tracery. The clerestory has pairs of round windows with quatrefoils.

Inside, the church has nave columns with carved crocket capitals and a clerestory with trefoil arcading on short marble capitals. The nave is topped with a timber arched brace roof. Notable interior features include a carved rood screen from 1921 and a marble and alabaster reredos with carved heads in the chancel. The carving was done by Earp, and the stained glass, much of which was lost during the War, includes some surviving pieces in the west windows of the aisles.