St Mark'S Church

St Mark's Church is a parish church built in 1957-9 to designs by Richard Gilbert Scott of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, Son and Partner. The building incorporates salvaged fabric from the bomb-damaged All Saints Church in Surrey Square, Newington, which dated from 1964-5 and was designed by R Parris and S Field.

The exterior is constructed of narrow yellow and brown brick with stone dressings. The interior employs concrete for the aisle piers, together with red brick, Bath stone corbels, and timber roof—all salvaged from All Saints. The building is roofed with low, steep-pitched plain tiles. The overall form is a long, low church under a single roof, internally divided by a chancel arch into a distinct sanctuary and nave. The nave features narrow aisles. A slightly tapered campanile is attached at the north-west corner. The west end is dominated by a full-height window from a central door to the apex, set with stonework in Richard Gilbert Scott's lively late Gothic style. Similar tracery appears in the windows of the north and south aisles, with plate glass set behind traceried windows that function as screens. The east end is solid brickwork.

A foundation stone commemorating 'the Moving Church' was relaid by Father Vivian Symons on 9 November 1957.

The interior contains a seven-bay nave with the western end blind and narrow passage aisles. The choir area and sanctuary are raised on three steps, with an open truss roof to the nave and choir, and a boarded roof to the sanctuary. The reredos was designed by Richard Gilbert Scott, inspired by his father's work at Liverpool Cathedral. It incorporates a mural of Christ in Majesty by Roland Pym, which blends images of the old and new church with locally carved angels. The altar front consists of carved wood assembled from All Saints. The pews and organ case were designed by Richard Gilbert Scott. The font originates from the old mission church and is dedicated to Emma Ella Frances Hart, who died in 1928.

The west window, given by Arthur Tremain (first vicar's warden) and Sarah R Tremain, incorporates images of the old St Mark's (a tin tabernacle of 1904) and All Saints in Surrey Square. The windows are Belgian rose plate glass. Father Symons etched all 51 windows with designs copied from woodcuttings of the 'Biblia Pauperum' of 1420, depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments. The dentist's drills used by Father Symons to create these works, together with photographs of the old church being demolished and rebuilt, are displayed at the rear of the church. A memorial to Father Symons (1913-76), Perpetual Curate and first Vicar of St Mark from 1951-66, stands on the chancel arch.

A mission church was erected at Biggin Hill in 1904, but permanent church construction was curtailed by the Second World War. The growing civilian population at Biggin Hill, following the village's central role in the Battle of Britain, prompted Father Vivian Symons to devise an unconventional solution: to demolish a bomb-damaged church and reconstruct it at the new site, circumventing building restrictions then in force. In August 1952, Symons was granted a faculty to take down All Saints in North Peckham. Harrow School boys, who supported underfunded projects through a charity, introduced him to Sir Giles Scott, who delegated the commission to his son Richard—one of the younger architect's first works.

The reconstruction was a substantial collaborative effort. Parish members, led by Father Symons, took down and transported the old material. Ladies of the parish cleaned and stacked the bricks and undertook needlework and decoration. In total, 125,000 bricks, 200 tons of stonework, and all roof timbers were salvaged. The church was built at a cost of £5,300 in 1957-9, financed by generous donations. Remarkably, the number of bricks salvaged was within a few hundred of the number required for the new building, the old stonework proved just adequate, and all old timbers fitted together perfectly. Richard Gilbert Scott's design sought to humanise Gothic to village church scale, and the building somewhat resembles a Kentish barn in overall form. The church remains known today as 'the Moving Church'.

The story of the Moving Church was recorded by Father Symons in a book of that title and in numerous radio and television interviews that reached a wide audience at the time.

A church hall to the rear is of no special interest.