Church Of St Mark

Church of St Mark, 1904-5, by Montague Wheeler in a broadly Arts & Crafts style with Gothic revival references.

Built in red brick in English Bond with stone dressings, tile details and slate roofs. The plan comprises a broad nave with shallow lean-to aisles, a lower narrower chancel to the east end, paired flat-roofed vestries to the north, and an octagonal stair tower to the north-west.

The principal elevations face north and south. The nave is lit by leaded lancet clerestory windows, with a pitched roof largely hidden behind a brick parapet. Triple traceried aisle windows are set between dramatic stepped flying buttresses, which continue at roof level as stepped ribs climbing behind the parapet. Each step has a tiled gabled cover. The contemporary flat-roofed double vestry at the north-east corner features a chequerboard parapet in brick and stone, with triple and quadruple traceried windows with stone surrounds and an external door to the west also with a stone surround. The chequerboard motif is repeated on the parapet of the polygonal stair tower. The narrower chancel, though less flamboyant than the nave, has stepped buttresses and a lower pitched slate roof behind a crenellated parapet. Its windows are more elaborate in tracery, including a large five-light east window. Two main entrances have boarded double doors with stud decoration and decorative iron handles. The northern entrance, between a flying buttress and the stair tower, has an elegantly moulded segmental arched surround in red brick. The west entrance is more prominent, with a segmental arched moulded hood in stone with a stepped drip mould and string course, flanked by paired traceried windows. A large three-light traceried window sits above, with stepped stone eaves and stone banded decoration to the gable. The rainwater goods are highly decorative throughout, featuring horizontal hoppers decorated with oak leaves.

Internally, the walls are rendered and painted white with piers and arches in stone for contrast. Two paired vestries to the north have broad solid plank and studded doors with shallow arched heads. The north-west stair turret contains a stone spiral staircase with a prominent stone newel post with tooled decoration, providing access to the organ loft at the west end, which is painted and panelled. A small south-west chapel occupies part of the nave. Both nave and chancel have boarded collar beam roofs. The nave roof is supported on timber wall posts rising from simple stone corbels and is divided into panels by broad semi-circular arches rising from slender ribs that rise from the piers. Floors are laid in herringbone wood block. Late twentieth-century reordering removed the nave pews and replaced them with wooden chairs. An additional altar was introduced under the chancel arch, whilst the original altar remains at the east end. The altar rail has also been moved into the nave. Decoration is generally subtle, with small foliate stone bosses to the chancel arch and tracery to the sedilia.

Fixtures and fittings include an organ of 1912 by William Hill & Son. Notable stained glass windows include works at the west end by Joseph Nuttgens and Reginald Hallward. An earlier window of 1889 depicting the crucifixion was transferred from the late nineteenth-century mission church. The large east window is a late work of 1904-6 by Charles Eamer Kempe, with an additional lower panel of 1922 by Kempe & Co. Other features comprise a stone baptismal font of 1906 with a heavy carved wooden cover of 1908, a decorated panelled pulpit, carved oak choir stalls of 1920, a First World War memorial, and French Stations of the Cross dating to circa 1860.

Montague Wheeler (1874-1937) and his architectural partner Edward Barclay Hoare (1872-1943) established their practice of Hoare & Wheeler at Friar Street, Reading in 1898, with additional premises at Portman Square in London. They undertook a number of ecclesiastical commissions including renovations and new designs. Wheeler received the commission for St Mark's in 1902, making this one of the firm's earliest works. The building replaced a tin mission church, also called St Mark's, which had been established on the site in 1889 and was located to the south of the present building. An examination of the original floor plan demonstrates that the church is largely unaltered except for the addition of fixtures and fittings in the early twentieth century. St Mark's was a daughter church to St Mary Le Butts in central Reading before becoming a parish church in its own right in 1972.

The exterior is unusual in its massing, particularly the ranks of flying buttresses and stepped ribs to the north and south elevations, with evidence of quality craftsmanship in the choice and application of materials. Although relatively austere internally, it has been well composed, notably in the use of light and shade and the contrast of different arch forms; the wide segmental arches of the arcade subtly refer to the expressionist European style that Wheeler pursued later in his career. The church represents an interesting merging of Arts & Crafts and Gothic revival elements.