Celestial Church Of Christ And Attached Wall And Railings

Celestial Church of Christ and Attached Wall and Railings

Formerly known as the Church of St Andrew, this is an Anglican church now serving the Celestial Church of Christ. Built between 1864 and 1865, it was designed by E Bassett Keeling in the High Victorian Gothic style characterised by wilful and muscular forms typical of his work, with plate tracery throughout. The building is constructed of ragstone with dressed stone; the nave roof is tiled, the lean-to roofs are slated, and the tower roof is metal.

The church follows a complex plan centred on a single-bay apse and choir, with a heating chamber to the south and vestry to the north. A north transept and aisle are provided, while the south transept is suppressed. The nave comprises four bays, preceded by a narthex and a north-west tower of four stages topped with a pyramidal roof.

The apse is lit by five trefoiled lancets with red sandstone springing bands. The north side of the choir has four quatrefoil lights set in pointed arch surrounds, while the north transept contains a wheel window with a pair of two-light windows below. The north aisle features a continuous arcade of lancet lights, and the clerestory is lit by paired lancets.

The west and south elevations are of greatest architectural interest. The west elevation displays a boldly scaled west window and an entrance flanked by a west porch. The southern porch is simply gabled, while the northern porch forms the main entrance and base of the tower, with a gabled aedicule to the west and return featuring sub-ordering. The tower's second stage is lit by pairs of lancets, and the third stage by triplets. The top stage, or bell stage, is patterned on Italian medieval examples and recalls the top storey of G E Street's St James the Less, Thorndike Street from some fifteen years earlier, featuring large paired lancets sharing a single column, set within a gabled aedicule flush to the wall surface. A large-scale corbel table crowns the design. The ritual south elevation is articulated by widely spaced buttresses at the west end (marking a gallery inside) and narrowly spaced buttresses to the four nave bays. Each buttress has two setbacks, with the lowest stage becoming a flying buttress forming an alleyway to the vestry.

The interior reveals an ambitious but incomplete scheme for decorative carving, with excellent pieces surviving from 1864 to the early twentieth century. Historiated capitals adorn a three-bay blind arcade on the south side of the choir. Corbel shafts to the chancel arch are carved as singing angels. The chancel arch bears an inscription in Gothic script: "The Lord in His Holy Temple, Let All the Earth Keep Silent before Him."

The choir and apse roof feature wood ribs over boarding. The nave ceiling has been covered since 1978 with drop acoustic tiles, though the original arched braces and boarded ceiling remain above; one bay is exposed near the chancel arch. The nave is spanned by a west gallery supported on Gothic cast-iron columns with a jigsaw-cut gallery front in a stylised floral pattern. Shafts to the north aisle and transept are of polished pink and grey granite.

The planning is notably Low Church in feeling, with an exceptionally broad nave and north aisle accessed from the transept by a pair of stilted, pointed, segmental arches of different heights—a noteworthy feature. The south wall of the nave bears a band of billet moulding found throughout the design, and the windows are set well back from the wall plane.

Several carved pieces of special interest survive at the crossing: the north-west pier displays a double capital showing fishermen; the second capital from the crossing depicts Christ surrounded by children; the third shows Christ preaching. The remaining capitals are carved with heavy floral figures. The carvings are dated 1872, 1876, and 1884 respectively.

Memorials include a plaque on the south wall of the choir commemorating Revd William Pheasant, MA, vicar from 1899 to 1916, who installed electric lights. A plaque in the eastmost wall of the nave on the south side, dated 1884, identifies two adjacent pillars as a memorial to Revd William Briggs, carved by the parishioners themselves. Original furnishings were removed when the Anglican communion deconsecrated the building prior to its sale to the Nigerian Celestial Church of Christ.

The church is accompanied by attached cast-iron railings on a low wall.