Church Of St Christopher (Former Pembroke College Mission Church), And No. 80

Church of St Christopher (former Pembroke College Mission) and No. 80 Tatum Street, Walworth

The Church of St Christopher is a former Pembroke College Mission church, now an Anglican church, with an adjoining house at No. 80 Tatum Street. The buildings occupy a corner plot and were constructed in phases between 1891 and 1908-9. The church and domestic ranges were designed by Edward S Prior, with the upper floors completed by Herbert Passmore following Prior's death in 1899. The materials are red brick laid in English bond, with tile and slate roofs.

The complex comprises a church with club rooms, kitchens and lavatories on the ground floor, with domestic ranges extending along Tatum Street and a return along Huntsman Street. The domestic ranges to Tatum Street, including No. 80, are two storeys with dormers and scattered fenestration, featuring three roof dormers and two segmental-arched entrances. The original glazing in Prior's patent glass set in cast-iron casements has been replaced in the two right-hand bays at ground and first-floor levels, though the casements to the remainder and dormers are of authentic design.

The church block rises from the corner plot, with the chancel range containing two windows to the ground floor and a recessed entrance range between the chancel and a corner tower. The tower features a louvered bellcote, pyramidal roof and groin-vaulted corner entrance. The transept range returns along Huntsman Street with stepped round-arched windows lighting a vaulted stair to the church on the first floor, and three windows to the ground floor of the return. The church itself comprises a nave and aisles of five bays with a square-ended chancel and transept. Skylights now occupy the position of the original shallow-pitched dormers.

The rear elevation to Halpin Place features an unusual canted front line, with a caretaker's house at the north end of the block built to Prior's 1891 design. Rainwater goods bearing the date 1908 remain intact, and a memorial plaque to the 1908 building campaign is set in the tower.

The Pembroke College Mission, founded by Cambridge University in 1885, appointed Edward Schroeder Prior as architect in 1891. Only the ground floor of Prior's 1891 design was initially executed, though the warden's house to the rear in Halpin Place with its unusual canted front wall was completed to the original design shortly after. No. 80 was added entirely to Prior's 1895 designs. Following the death of Prior's brother Charles in 1899 (who was a tutor at Pembroke and member of the mission committee), Prior lost the position of mission architect. The upper floors of the mission, including the first-floor church and hall, were then completed by Herbert Passmore in 1908-9. Passmore largely followed Prior's plan but simplified the massing and details considerably.

Prior's design is notably irregular in line and elevation, reflecting his own theories of organic building and his characteristic use of detail, particularly evident in the unusual mullioned windows to the ground floor of the church and mission house along Tatum Street.