Church Of St Mark

The Church of St Mark was built between 1871 and 1872, designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield. It is constructed of red brick with Bath stone dressings and has tiled and slate roofs.

The church’s plan is of a north-south oriented nave with aisles, and an altar at the south end. The gabled west front features buttresses and lower aisles to either side. The central entrance has a moulded stone arched door surround with stiff-leaf capitals and a tympanum depicting St Mark holding a roundel containing a lion within a mandorla, set against a rinceaux relief. Double plank doors have Gothic Revival ironwork. A smaller door to the east has an IHS monogram in its tympanum. Herringbone brickwork runs beneath a moulded string course, above which is a receding tiled roof. An arched opening in the upper gable contains a pair of arched lights with quatrefoils, a circular window with three quatrefoils, and flanking circular rosettes constructed of moulded brick, all set within a recess of herringbone brickwork. Octagonal finials terminate the gables. The sides of the exterior are largely hidden by neighbouring buildings, but each features rows of arched recesses with four-light windows at the upper level, above sloping roofs to the aisles.

Inside, the four-bay nave has arcades supported by cast iron piers. The nave has an open king-post truss roof, and the aisles have open truss roofs. A large chancel arch opens to the sanctuary, carried on colonnettes with triple-arched openings above. Triple openings on the arcaded sides have paired arches above; those on the north side contain windows, while those on the south are open. The east window is a three-light window, with upper sections possibly designed by Mary Lowndes, and possibly with assistance from Emily Ford, in 1904. The lower sections are a parish war memorial from around 1920, depicting the warrior saints Joan, George, and Maurice, symbolizing France, Britain, and Italy. An unidentified workshop is suspected to be William Morris & Company of Westminster. A north chancel chapel was added in 1895. The west end houses an organ loft containing an organ by Whiteley of Chester (a replacement), with an arcaded, trefoil-headed front.

Fittings are largely removed. An altar table from 1897, made by Messrs Grosse of Bruges, remains, along with dedicatory plaques in the north chancel chapel. A five-panel reredos depicting scenes from the Life of Christ, painted by Emily Ford, was adapted from an earlier design in 1904. Initially placed below the east window, it was moved in March 1956, and has since been re-positioned as the Chapel of St Francis of Assisi. The reredos has been restored at least twice, in 1942 and 1950, and the surrounding woodwork repainted.