Former Church of St Crispin with Christchurch

Former Church of St Crispin with Christchurch

Parish church, built 1958–9 by Thomas F Ford. The building is constructed of stock brick with stone and artificial stone dressings, and copper roofs. It follows a broad Greek cross plan with a central saucer dome and projecting chapel. The church is liturgically reversed, though liturgical points have been used throughout in the description below.

A short tower stands to the side of the main entrance front. The entrance is formed by pairs of doors set in stone surrounds beneath a segmental-headed west window. The broad transepts are treated as a semi-classical composition with broad piers and incised capitals. The seven-light segmental arch between them has no Gothic mouldings. The east end is lit by square-headed windows to either side, with those to the sanctuary set higher. A low side chapel with flat roof also features square-headed windows and large hopper heads.

The interior is of particular interest and remains virtually unaltered. From the vestibule, entry to the church is via pairs of doors covered in red leather. The pews and hassocks are also covered in leather, a reference to Bermondsey's traditional leather industry. The broad nave is lined with shallow pilasters and delicate rococo capitals set in a frieze. Moulded panels decorate the front of the organ gallery at the west end. Pendant lights are also part of Ford's original design.

The chancel is set up three steps. A broad arch frames the choir, whose stalls are positioned high between paired square columns. They are accessed behind the built-in pulpit and reading desk, which form a unified composition with the front choir stalls and altar rails. These feature simplified Grecian mouldings resembling those of the organ gallery. The broad nave and chancel arch mean little adaptation has been required to bring the church into line with modern liturgical practice.

The focus of the church is a fine mural by Hans Feibusch depicting the legend of Crispin and Crispinian, the patron saints of shoes and leather. A large mural, predominantly of sky and clouds, fills the dome and was painted by Feibusch's protégé, Phyllis Bray.

The side chapel commemorates the rebuilding of St Crispin's and its unification with the parish of Christ Church. It contains glass by M C Farrar Bell from Christchurch.

Ford's church replaced an earlier church of 1879–80 by Coe and Robinson, which was destroyed in wartime bombing. Thomas F Ford was a prominent church designer in the 1950s, particularly as war damage surveyor to the Diocese of Southwark. He worked extensively with Hans Feibusch (1898–1998), the last surviving artist exhibited in Hitler's exhibition of Degenerate Art, who emigrated to England in 1933. Edward Mills commissioned Feibusch's first church mural, for Colliers Wood Methodist Church, but it was for the Dioceses of Chichester and Southwark that he worked most extensively. Ford was Feibusch's most frequent collaborator, beginning in 1951 when Ford restored St John, Waterloo, as the Festival of Britain church. This is already listed, as one of the first Commissioners' churches built under the Act of 1818. However, St Crispin's is the most complete surviving of all Ford's new interiors, and the one in which art and architecture are exceptionally well integrated.