Congregational Church

TQ 36 NE 785-0/2/10034

PENGE HIGH STREET SE20 Congregational Church

II Congregational Church. 1911-12. Percy Richard Morley Horder, architect. Ragstone with stone dressing. Slate roof.

Rectangular plan. Nave with low, lean-to aisles, short tower at west end with vestry rooms adjoining.

EXTERIOR: Steeply-pitched roof with tall pointed, recessed and splayed window in gable end. Below: three-light window with cusped heads to light entrance vestibule. Entrance to left through low porch. Clerestory of nine windows with trefoil heads, small flat-arched windows to aisles. Squat, crenellated tower with louvered openings to belfry supported by unusual, irregularly stepped buttresses.

INTERIOR: Timber roof with crown post tie supports. Simple stone-faced walls to arcades of three bays each, with wide, shallow pointed and moulded arches. Square chamfered piers. Arcade walls articulated horizontally by moulded strings and vertically by chamfered stone ribs which terminate in large, naturalistically-carved corbels. Some depict the emblems of the Evangelists. The ribs extend up to the roof level terminating in moulded caps. Three clerestory windows per bay, with shallow pointed arches and splayed soffits. Square chamfered piers. Narrow passage aisles with pointed arches, and flat-arched, plain-glazed windows to aisles. Tall west window with Decorated tracery, plain glazed, flanked by small arched recesses: each has a separate gallery with panelled wooden fronts.

East end: stone, moulded chancel arch leading to shallow, three-sided chancel with painted, vaulted ceiling. Coloured glazed windows high above. Panelled dais to match panelled reredos, a simple tripartite pierced screen. Pierced front to communion table. Carved wooden organ cases in Gothic Revival style either side of the choir. Original choir stalls, pulpit, reading desk and pews, and light fittings. Chapel in southeast corner divided by screen with carved and gilded frieze.

Vestry room to rear of church: panelled with wooden fire-surround, one original light fitting. A simple and elegant interior, completely intact. Percy Richard Morley Horder was the son of Pev. William Garrett Horder, a Congregational hymnologist. Morley Horder was articled to George Devey from whom he absorbed a love of the English vernacular tradition of building. Morley Horder's practice included a number of Congregational Churches built just before the First World War in the London suburbs, and the Cheshunt Congregational College in Cambridge.

Listing NGR: TQ3569969924