John Keble Church

The John Keble Church, located in Church Close, was built in 1936 by D F Martin Smith. It is an example of the Modern Movement style. The church is constructed with a concrete frame clad in stock brick, and has flat concrete roofs. The main body of the church comprises a nave and sanctuary, with projecting ranges containing north and south aisles, a west tower, and additional ranges housing a vestry, offices, and a Lady Chapel. The east window is a three-light design featuring a concrete lintel over a raised brick architrave and square brick mullions framing metal casements. Similar two-light windows are found on the sides of the one-bay sanctuary and the three-bay nave aisles. Porches in the west angles of the nave and aisles each have panelled double doors. The sanctuary and aisles have plain concrete coping, while the main body of the nave has a splayed cornice. The west tower has small two-light windows set in raised concrete architraves; the west elevation features a similar three-light window above a panel inscribed with a phoenix and the name JOHN KEBLE, which is splayed inwards above a recessed bay with a grid-like twenty-light concrete-framed window. A flat hood covers panelled double doors, and the belfry is surmounted by a mosaic copper cross and ball covered in gold leaf. Inside, the walls are white plastered, and the sanctuary floor is of cream-coloured artificial stone. A fine blue and gold mosaic panel depicting a dove is set into the sanctuary ceiling. Other interior features include tall wrought-iron candelabra, triple sedilia, two pulpits, and a circular oak font with projecting wrought-iron candelabra. A west porch, located beneath the tower, is partitioned off by a screen in a refined 'stripped Perpendicular' style, which incorporates mullioned upper stages above a panelled lower stage. Stairs lead to a gallery above the porch. The nave showcases the first use in Britain of the 'Diagrid' roofing system; the octagonal concrete roof is filled in by diagonally-intersecting beams, with coloured ceiling boards filling the panels, and this construction method is said to have saved 40% on normal costs. The church’s design and economical construction made it an influential example, highlighted in Knopp-Fisher's publication The Future of Church Design in 1951, as a prototype for post-war church architecture.