Church Of St Bartholomew

Church of St Bartholomew

An Anglican church completed in 1872–4, designed by Edmund Scott for the Reverend Arthur Douglas Wagner. The completion date is recorded on the north-west porch. The building is constructed of yellow brick set in English bond with dressings of red brick and Portland stone, and has a slate roof.

The plan comprises a nave and chancel under a single roof. The east end was never completed and remains blank, with two buttresses featuring three slight offsets and a gable now covered in slate. Both the south and north sides are nine bays long and largely sheer in treatment. Each bay is detailed from a base of red brick with trefoiled lancets set in flat-arched stone architraves under pointed-arched brick mouldings; the sills and lintels are connected by broad bands of stone. A brick dentil cornice runs above, with the wall set back slightly between piers that function as buttresses at clerestory level. Stone quatrefoils appear at triforium level, followed by another dentil cornice and a shallow lean-to roof accommodating a further setback. The clerestory windows are simple broad lancets with splayed sills, deep reveals, and unmoulded brick heads under moulded brick headmoulds and strings. A Lombard frieze of moulded brick and stone runs beneath a brick dentil cornice and arcaded parapet.

The west end rises sheer to the gable between angle buttresses. The centrepiece is a round-arched portal with four orders of stone columns and arches of moulded red brick. Two flat-arched entrances with original doors featuring bold wrought-iron hinges flank this portal, with stained glass filling the tympanum. Broad bands of stone extend upward, continuous with the sides of the church; between them stands a statue of St Bartholomew in a gabled and crocketed niche over the portal. Above this is a band of diaper work in red brick, a brick dentil cornice, four lancets with continuous brick hoodmould, and above the hoodmould the wall is divided into layers by bands of ashlar with diaper work in red brick standing slightly proud. A rose window with moulded brick surround and tile work roundels to either side sits above, with a four-light opening and cross in the gable apex. A north-west porch has a segmental-arched entrance and coped parapet. The ridge reaches 42 metres high, making St Bartholomew's the tallest parish church in Britain.

The interior is a single space faced in yellow brick with red brick dressings. The chancel, occupying the two easternmost of the nine bays, is raised five steps from the nave. A baldacchino designed by Henry Wilson and erected in 1899–1900 abuts the east end, with antae and pilasters supporting round arches. The antae are faced principally in red marble with alabaster foliage capitals of Byzantine inspiration; the superstructure is green with a band of lozenge-patterned marble and a billet moulding cornice. The interior vault of the baldacchino is inlaid with gold mosaic and mother-of-pearl. The altar, raised seven steps above the sanctuary, stands against a low wall of pinkish marble running under the baldacchino. The altar frontal is decorated with painted panels by S Bell dating to 1874, and the tabernacle door is of silver repoussé work by Henry Wilson.

The lower part of the east wall is decorated with figure panels in mosaic designed by F Hamilton Jackson in 1911, with the central panel, framed by the baldacchino, depicting Christ in glory and marble angel panels to the sides. The sanctuary is raised one step above the chancel and has two short brass communion rails designed by Henry Wilson and introduced around 1905, with balusters decorated with blue enamel medallions and foliage openwork. At each of the two front corners of the sanctuary stands a candlestick designed by Henry Wilson, approximately 15 feet high, consisting of a tapering column of grey and white Tuscan marble with a bronze candleholder of elaborate design. On either side of the chancel are oak choir stalls with a lettered frieze designed by Henry Wilson. The east wall above the mosaic and marble work is decorated with red brick panels and diaper work, featuring a crucifix over the baldacchino designed by S Bell, partly painted and partly incised on encaustic tiles.

The side walls are set out as an arcade, approximately five feet deep, with side chapels in the recesses. The arcade consists of internal buttresses in the form of flat brick piers with stone mouldings at the springing, supporting pointed red brick arches with vault shafts in red brick. The spandrels are decorated with courses of stone and blue and red brick up to a brick dentil course, then a range of three blank lancets with red brick heads in each bay, and above these a clerestory with deep embrasures and a triforium passage; a Lombard frieze runs to the wall plate. The west end above gallery level continues the side wall treatment, with a four-bay arcade in front of the lancet windows and a rose window above set back under a pointed arch along whose base runs a trefoiled balustrade. The roof is of timber with crown-post trusses and pointed arches.

The pulpit, designed by Henry Wilson and erected in 1906, has a background of polygonal red marble screen set into one of the north recesses, with a stair leading to a small marble pulpit. In front is a gallery running the width of the recess with a central polygonal bay and balustrade of green Irish marble, carried on columns of red African marble with stone foliage capitals of Byzantine inspiration and a wooden sounding board overhead. A Lady altar in one of the south recesses, designed by Henry Wilson in 1902, features a silver-plate frontal and gradine decorated with repoussé work. An octagonal font designed by Henry Wilson in 1908 has panels of green marble framed in copper on a semicircular plinth of black marble steps against a marble-lined recess background, with a statue of John the Baptist designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and carved by W D Gough in 1925.

In the westernmost bay to the north, beneath the gallery, is an altar under ornately panelled and gilded coving with late Gothic style ornamental bands. The wooden gallery, designed by Henry Wilson in 1906 with a bow to the centre, is carried on two piers of ornate profile, with the underside divided into panels decorated with billet ornament and paint. An organ of 1901 by J W Walker and Son is installed. Stained glass windows over the Lady Chapel and the second to fourth bays thereafter were made by W E Tower; that adjacent to the Lady Chapel is by Bewsey.