Church Of St Luke

Church of St Luke, Westmount Road

This church was built in 1906–7 by Temple Moore, one of England's greatest Edwardian church designers. The south aisle and chapel were added in 1933 by J B L Tolhurst of Beckenham, after Moore's death.

The church is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and red tiled roofs, except for the flat roof of the south aisle. Inside, the walls have stone-coloured render with bare stone dressings.

The building comprises a nave, aisles, chancel, with the north aisle extended as an organ chamber and the south as a Lady Chapel. Two porches flank the west end.

From outside, the church presents a steep nave gable to the road with a continuous roof over the north aisle. The west window has four lights with flowing tracery. A small north porch serves the north side. The east end wall displays a pair of three-light windows, and stepped buttresses divide the bays. The north aisle contains four bays, each with groups of three cusped lights beneath segmental arches.

The interior is remarkable for the bold contrast between the delicate tracery of the windows and the stark geometry of the bare arches. Two broad arches form the north arcade and three the south arcade, rising almost to the top of the wall. The piers are square and rectangular with chamfered corners and minimal abaci between the piers and the arch springings. There is no clerestory or chancel arch. Two transverse arches span the north aisle. Over the nave and chancel sits a wooden wagon roof.

The choir stalls and associated woodwork are by Moore himself, executed in simple, chaste forms characteristic of the Arts and Crafts tradition. A wooden traceried screen by W S Weatherley, made later than the church's original construction, also survives.

Moore's 1905 design initially included a northwest tower, which was abandoned. A revised design was shown at the 1906 Royal Academy. When the church was dedicated in February 1907, the south aisle had not yet been built. Moore had planned it with a low pitch, in marked contrast to the steeply-sloping roof of the north aisle. This deficiency was rectified in 1933 by Tolhurst.

The church exemplifies the characteristic approach of early 20th-century church design: a relatively plain exterior combined with emphasis on interior design. As the influential critic H S Goodhart-Rendel observed in a 1928 RIBA lecture, it demonstrates "the grandeur that Moore knew so well how to extract from bare shapes and homely materials". This grandeur is particularly evident in the bold, strong forms of the arcades. The different rhythm between the north and south arcades, with their varying number of arches, exemplifies the asymmetry Moore frequently introduced into his designs. The chancel fittings display the studied simplicity characteristic of Moore's approach to woodwork.

The Eltham Park area was being developed in the early 20th century, and Temple Moore was selected to create a permanent church to replace a temporary mission hall.