Church Of St Michael And All Angels

Church of St Michael and All Angels

This church, designed by George Smith and built in 1828-30, stands at the centre of the Cator Estate in Blackheath Park. It was originally constructed as a proprietary chapel, funded by John Barwell Cator (nephew of the estate's founder John Cator), who gave £4,000 and land for its construction. The foundation stone was laid on 20 December 1828, and the building was completed by February 1830 under the direction of local builder William Moore. The church became parochial in 1874 and received its dedication to St Michael and All Angels at that time.

The building is constructed of white brick with Bath stone dressings and features a Welsh slate roof, which was renewed in 1988. Its plan comprises an eight-bay nave and chancel in one, north and south aisles that are shorter than the nave by one bay at the west end, north and south porches, a tower at the east end, and a northeast vestry.

Architecturally, the church is remarkable as an outstanding example of Gothic design from around 1830. The most striking feature is the extraordinarily tall tower and spire placed at the east end, earning the spire the local nickname "the needle of Kent" for its attenuated quality. The body of the church is very tall, with the aisles and clerestory nave displaying plain parapets and shallow pilasters that demarcate the bays and rise into pinnacles over the nave. The fenestration throughout the side elevations consists of two-light windows with quatrefoiled circles in the head; aisle windows include a transom.

The tower has diagonal buttresses and a very large east window. Its lower portion is in Geometrical style with three lights terminating in a cinquefoiled circle, while above this comes a Perpendicular treatment of three lights with panel tracery and main openings filled with cusped crosses in square frames. The tower has tall pinnacles at the corners and a plain parapet, slightly gabled to the east and west. Behind this rises the octagonal spire drum, which has tall single-light lancet openings and is topped by an open parapet with three openings per side. Thick buttresses at the angles rise into tall pinnacles, and the tapering portion of the spire has angle ribs and one tier of spire lights.

The northeast vestry was added in 1878-9 by Richard Norman Shaw and is broadly in keeping with the 1830 church, featuring a five-light Perpendicular window facing onto the road.

The interior is notably light and possesses a great sense of verticality achieved through tall arcades and clerestory, with slender shafts rising from the ground to the roof springing. The arcades, which stretch from one end of the church to the other, comprise seven bays with responds in the east-west directions and moulded capitals. At the east end, the focus is the ornate reredos and a large three-light window above with a large cinquefoil in its head. This window is located in the west wall of the tower, although a corresponding large window in the east face of the tower makes this placement initially unclear. The nave and chancel roof features arch-braces to tie-beams and has three canted sides divided into square panels by moulded ribs and main trusses.

The reredos has prominent pinnacled shafts dividing it into bays with cusped arches and delicate panel tracery at the sides. The two middle bays contain a gable with a traceried circle in the head. The decoration on the reredos dates from the 1881-2 refitting. A gallery extends around the full length of the north, south, and west sides with seats and fronts dating from 1881-2. At the west end, it houses an ornate organ case with a series of towers and flats and gilded decoration. The nave seating also dates from 1881-2 and features shaped ends with seat numbers painted on them and umbrella holders. The font is a plain octagonal piece with IHS carved on the east face. The stone pulpit is a World War I memorial in conventional Gothic style with open traceried sides.

The church underwent significant refitting in 1881-2, when Edward dru Drury, a local architect, designed the addition of north and south porches and oversaw the replacement of seating and gallery fronts. The nave seating retains painted pew numbers, serving as a reminder that pew rents were not abolished at this church until after World War II—an unusual, though not unique, situation. A further reordering took place in 1981 by John Burden, a member of the congregation, who installed movable stalls for the clergy, communion rails and tables, and reused 1881 fittings where possible.

Architecturally, the church demonstrates how Gothic became the accepted style for church building in late Georgian times, though it was not archaeologically correct in the manner demanded from around 1840 onwards, which underpinned the early Victorian Gothic Revival. This is most evident in the extraordinary steeple, where the large east window has been described as "a crazy assembly of motifs utterly unworried by considerations of antiquarian accuracy." The placement of the steeple at the east end is both highly unusual and disconcerting, likely positioned as an eye-catcher to enhance the impression of the estate's central crossroads.

The architect George Smith (1783-1869) was surveyor to, and twice master of, the Coopers' Company. He was a friend of J B Cator and designed numerous houses on the estate, including the original Brooklands House (1827) where he lived, as well as several stations in south London, among them the original London Bridge station house and the station house at Blackheath.

The fine, airy interior clearly reflects changing taste in the later nineteenth century. As was common with churches built in the 1820s or 1830s, box-pews were cleared out and replaced with open benches with shaped ends. Galleries typically retained their seating during such schemes, but here even the gallery fronts were replaced.