Church Of St Luke

Church of St Luke

This church was built between 1858 and 1861 to designs by Thomas Hellyer of Ryde. It is constructed in flint with stone dressings and has Welsh slate roofs. The building is designed in the Neo-Norman style.

The church comprises a five-bay nave with aisles, a single-bay chancel with an apsidal sanctuary, a south-east vestry, and a west bellcote. It is aligned north-west to south-east, with the liturgical east in the direction of the apse.

The north face features offset flat buttresses clasped at the corners with a stone coped plinth. On the east side is a recessed boarded door beneath a round stone arch with rusticated jambs. One paired window opens to the left and four paired windows to the right, each with leaded lights set under round stone arches with rusticated jambs and sills. Projecting brick eaves run along the roof line. At the far west is a mid-twentieth-century brick passage entrance connecting to the adjacent church hall. The nave has five timber mullioned and transomed dormer clerestory windows with leaded lights.

The west face is slightly projecting at its centre and features a two-leaf boarded door with ornate iron strap hinges set beneath a splayed round stone arch with hoodmould and rusticated jambs. To left and right are two narrow round-headed windows, each set under a round stone arch with rusticated jambs. Similar windows appear in niche pilaster buttresses on either side. Above these, at the second tier, a tall recessed window with leaded lights sits within a stone splayed and roll-moulded round arch with hoodmould and flanking colonnettes supporting the springers. Closely spaced on each side are two shorter narrow recessed round-arched windows, each with zig-zag ornament and moulded imposts banded to left and right, with a horizontal hoodmould running over each pair. A third tier, above the central window, contains a narrow round-headed window under a stone arch with hoodmould and rusticated jambs. At the apex is a stone bellcote with a round-arched opening, flanking pilasters, corner buttresses, and a facing gable with finial.

Each aisle, with its lower roof, has a recessed two-leaf boarded door set beneath a round stone arch. The south face displays similar round-headed windows to the north face. At the far west is a projecting boiler house with a narrow boarded door on its west face set under a round stone arch, with a facing stone gable.

The east face of the sanctuary apse contains three narrow windows with leaded lights, each set under a round stone arch with jambs and sills, flanked by projecting pilaster buttresses. A projecting brick eaves course with stone Lombard frieze runs beneath the roof. To the left of the chancel stands a low vestry with a lean-to roof, featuring a twenty-pane casement set under a flat stone arch with jambs and sill. On the left return of the vestry is a boarded door beneath a round stone arch.

The interior comprises a five-bay arcade with yellow brick columns banded in red brick, stone scalloped capitals and bases, and round stepped grey brick arches with hoodmoulds. The clerestory dormer windows contain patterned stained glass at their tops with plain glass below. The nave roof is constructed with hammer beams featuring curved principals and a diagonal boarded ceiling to the underside of the rafters. The aisle windows similarly incorporate stained glass at their tops, and the aisle ceilings are boarded and lower than the nave ceiling.

The chancel arch is formed in red brick with 'Norman' billet ornament at the intrados, yellow brick pilasters, and red brick bands with a scalloped stone cap. The centre window of the apsed sanctuary contains stained glass, with two round-headed plaques flanking the window, each with flanking colonnettes. A timber panelled dado rises to window sill level with a dentilled cornice. The curved boarded ceiling has rafters seated on stone corbels. A vestry door opens to the south side.

At the west end is a vestibule with a timber-framed screen and leaded lights, above which is an organ loft with a projecting balcony. The high-level west window contains stained glass.