Middlesex Hospital Chapel

Middlesex Hospital Chapel

This hospital chapel stands on the north side of Mortimer Street in Westminster. It was designed in 1891 by John Loughborough Pearson and completed in 1929 by his son Frank Loughborough Pearson. The building is executed in Italian Gothic style.

The exterior is constructed of red brick in English bond, with headers only to the apse. Portland stone provides the dressings, and plain tile roofs cover the structure. The chapel comprises a narthex and organ gallery, apsed western transepts, a nave, and an apsed chancel. The semi-circular chancel apse is lit by lancet windows. Two-light windows to the western bays of the chancel and to the nave feature plate tracery and quatrefoils to their heads. Similar windows appear on the canted sides of the North West transept and to the south side of the narthex. The South West transept contains a shallow inner bay with a hipped roof and a lower semicircular apse with a stone-coped parapet and lancet windows. All windows have splayed stone sills, heads and tracery. The west door features a continuous keeled moulding to its intrados, shafts and a chamfered arch to the extrados, with a hood mould and label stops. A blue brick plinth and stone-coped parapet run around the chapel.

The interior displays a complete scheme of polychrome marble and mosaic decoration with vaulting throughout. The vaults are enriched with mosaic work depicting stars against a gold background, with bands of mosaic ornament replacing cross ribs and patterned circles at intersections. Vaults spring from tall marble shafts with stiff-leaf foliage carved to attached stone capitals and moulded alabaster bases, which rest on a high continuous ledge at the level of the window splay bottoms. The window splays are lined with alabaster, incorporating bands of mosaic at the level of the shaft capitals and two thinner bands to the lower part of the splays, with patterned marble mosaic work above the bands at vault springing level. The walls below the ledge are lined with green onyx and feature a broad band of marble mosaic in a zigzag pattern running below the mosaic decoration of the ledge.

The chancel contains a pillar piscina with Cosmatiesque ornament to the spiral moulding of the pillar and to the bowl. An ogee-arched aumbry, presented in memory of Prince Francis of Teck and outlined by mosaic ornament, displays a white marble roundel above carved with a Pelican in her Piety. A round-headed chancel arch with plain piers lined with red marble features stiff-leaf capitals and marble abaci. The underside of the arch displays mosaic work with roundels depicting busts of the Twelve Apostles, with marble mosaic work between the arch and vault. A similar arch between the nave and western crossing features rectangular panels depicting the greater Prophets in mosaic work on the underside. A third similar arch frames the West gallery and organ loft, with mosaic capitals and an inscription in mosaic work reading "Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis".

The gallery is supported on three arches, with the central arch wider and flanked by paired red marble shafts with stone stiff-leaf capitals, and single shafts to the outer arches. The arches are lined with alabaster. The gallery front is panelled with Irish bog marble divided by vertical mosaic strips, with three sunk panels of mosaic work below mosaic work to the projecting ledge of the gallery rail. The inner arch framing the organ loft is lined with alabaster bearing mosaic crosses.

The North West apse contains a large marble roundel on its north wall below the vault depicting Saint Barnabas. The South West apse functions as a baptistery and has a narrow vaulted bay in front of the semicircular apse. The lower walls of this apse are lined with alternating panels of red, pale green and green marbles, with mosaic work to the apse depicting angels bearing scrolls either side of a cross against a blue background. The font is carved from a solid block of deep green marble with symbols of the Four Evangelists at each corner and is inscribed with a Greek palindrome copied from the font of Hagia Sophia. A white marble altar with mosaic panels and a marble gradine stands in the chancel and sanctuary. White marble cancelli between the nave and chancel incorporate a lectern with a winged eagle supporting the reading desk. The chancel and sanctuary have pavements of opus alexandrinum, whilst simpler tessellated floors cover the body of the chapel. The chapel contains late 19th to mid-20th century stained glass throughout. All liturgical directions are observed, though the chapel is in fact aligned on a roughly north-south axis.

The original Middlesex Hospital was demolished in 1927, and the hospital was subsequently rebuilt around the chapel.