Church Of St Patrick And Wall Fronting Road

The Church of St Patrick is an Early English style church, built in 1858 with minor additions in the 1870s. The architect was Edward Kendall junior, with the east and north-east windows of the nave designed by William Butterfield. It is constructed of Kentish rag stone with stone dressings, slate roofs, coped verges, and a shallow pyramid slate roof to the stump of the tower. The church’s plan incorporates abutting buildings to the north and south, and the visible south front is the liturgical south elevation. It comprises a cruciform layout, including a chancel with a two-bay south chapel adjoining the base of a two-stage tower, a three-bay north chapel, a six-bay aisled nave with a clerestory, and a south-west porch with a hallway or narthex.

The south front features a gabled porch with a two-stage stair turret, an ashlar tourelle, gabled clerestory windows projecting through the roof, gabled tops to the aisle buttresses, a large south window in the gable end of the south chapel, and a buttressed stump of the tower with a pyramid roof.

Inside, the church is rendered and the chancel is stencilled and painted by Clayton and Bell (1890-1). It has a ceiled hammer beam roof to the chancel with carved wooden angels and a similar open roof to the nave. There is much stained glass throughout. A Henry Willis organ, originally installed in the north chapel in 1856, was relocated to the north wall of the tower overlooking the chancel in 1906. A brass lectern was designed by William Butterfield in 1873, and a reredos by Somers Clark in 1887. The pulpit is of stone and marble, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott. A later addition is an alabaster font featuring a tall gilded wooden canopy and pulley system, installed in 1910. The church also contains fourteen paintings of the Stations of the Cross, oil on canvas, designed by Louis Ginnett and executed after his death in 1946 by Charles Knight, both local artists. The church’s seating has been removed and replaced with chairs arranged in a circle in the nave. A crypt, accessible from the narthex, is currently used as a shelter for the homeless. In the late 19th century, the church was known for its music, featuring a surpliced choir of over 80 men and boys, and was sometimes referred to as "Paddy's Music Hall”. The interior is spacious and well-lit, containing a collection of late Victorian fittings.