Church of St Faith

Church of England church designed by G F Bodley in 1905 in Late Gothic style and consecrated on 13th July 1907.

The church is built of red brick in English bond with stone dressings and slate roofs, though the roof on the south side has been replaced with modern concrete tiles. The plan comprises a seven-bay nave with north and south aisles that continue eastwards and engage with a two-bay chancel, the sanctuary of which projects beyond the aisles. The north aisle widens to form a Lady Chapel, while the south aisle contains an organ chamber. There is no tower; instead, a small bellcote for a single bell sits on the north side of the east gable. A vestry is positioned on the south side and a porch marks the main entrance on the north side.

Externally, the nave and chancel share a continuous roof and are distinguished chiefly by their fenestration. The nave displays tall, two-light clerestory windows with geometrical cusped tracery, the upper lights formed by trefoils. The chancel has tall, narrow, single-light cusped windows spaced differently. Much larger two-light lateral windows in the sanctuary have mullions carried up to the apex of the arch with mouchettes forming the upper lights. The east wall contains a three-light window with cusped and trefoiled upper lights, while the west wall has a taller, narrower two-light window with lights bisected by transoms and tracery lights incorporating quatrefoils and mouchettes. The lateral aisle walls are otherwise blind except the Lady Chapel, indicated by two four-light rectangular mullioned windows in the north wall and a five-light window under a pointed arch in the east wall. The main entrance on the north side has an arch-braced roof, an original door, and original wrought iron gates in the outer arch. The external chancel door on the north side is also original with ironwork. Good hopper heads to the downpipes feature Renaissance detailing throughout.

The interior contains a seven-bay arcade in the nave of diagonally placed piers without capitals; some arch mouldings die into the piers. These piers and the spandrels—which bear shields charged with painted Instruments of the Passion and of the Apostles—are of smooth ashlar masonry, with plastered wall space above. The westernmost bay is detached from the remainder of the arcade. The chancel features lower, separate two-bay arcades with hood moulds and central foliate stops, but otherwise there is no architectural division between these sections internally save for the raised chancel floor.

The east wall is finished internally in ashlar masonry. The east window is set in traceried panelling with empty niches apparently intended to hold images and incorporating attached pedestals, decorated with foliate and flower ornament in relief, shields charged with sacred devices and a brattished cornice. Below sill level, modern curtains obscure a blank wall behind.

A boarded barrel-vaulted roof with tie-beams runs the length of the central aisle. The tie-beam ends have pierced spandrels and stone corbels resting on attached shafts rising from nave arcade piers to moulded capitals. The roof boarding is decorated with a polychrome scheme of abstract and foliate ornament and the sacred monogram along the wall plate. The bay above the sanctuary features more elaborate decoration: ribs with carved bosses form a grid and diagonal latticework subdividing the surface, with the boarding powdered with painted stars. The lean-to roofs in the aisles have diagonal bracing members containing cusped and traceried decoration in the spandrels and at the junction with the rafters.

The central aisle and the area at the west end of the nave are floored in black and white marble paving; parquet floors are used throughout elsewhere, though the chancel flooring is completely obscured by modern carpet.

The church was furnished from the outset with chairs rather than pews; the nave is now seated throughout with typical early twentieth-century wooden chairs. An elaborate Perpendicular style octagonal Bere stone font stands at the west end of the south aisle on a very tall, two-tiered octagonal base with quatrefoil frieze on the lower riser. The upper riser is inscribed with 'Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me' and incorporates larger square panels at the cardinal points with cusped and foliate decoration and an inscription recording it as a gift in memory of "Arthur Burnell, the infant son of Arthur Charles and Margaret Mead who died 13th Nov. 1900". The stem features traceried niches with alternate figurines of angels in high relief and shields bearing emblems of the Evangelists, with much elaborate traceried and foliate decoration to the bowl. The wooden cover has a central stem bearing a figurine of an angel supported by ogee cusped members, and the original lifting mechanism survives. The prie dieu in the nave appears to be original. The pulpit by the east respond of the south nave arcade is also apparently original and characteristic of Bodley's fittings, being octagonal with traceried panels on a narrow base and a tall newel post at the top of the steps. The choir stalls and frontals are modern (presumed post-War). A low retable stands to the altar in the sanctuary. The Lady Chapel contains a sanctuary lamp with lifting mechanism and a nineteenth-century altar with an elaborately carved wooden front featuring floral motifs and grapes, originally from St. James's Palace chapel. A Hill organ installed in 1907 occupies one bay of the chamber on the south side of the chancel, apparently reusing material from an instrument originally built for St Paul's, Portland Street, which was demolished that same year; it has no case and a modern front pipe rack.

The stained glass includes a Christ in Majesty with angels under elaborate canopies in the east window of the sanctuary (commemorating Wilfrid Peter Hewett, d. 1904) and 'Suffer the Little Children' in the baptistery at the west end of the south aisle (commemorating Albert Fortescue), both by Burlison & Grylls, who were often employed by Bodley and installed around the time of construction. The east window of the Lady Chapel depicts the Virgin and Saints Alban and Martin by J N Comper, imitating the style of C.E. Kempe.