St Marks Garrison Church

St Mark's Garrison Church is a garrison church built between 1939 and 1941, designed by John Markham of the Ministry of Works and Buildings. The building is constructed of brick with limestone dressings and horizontal coursing punctuated by bands of red tile, with a plain tile roof.

The church plan consists of a long seven-bay nave with a west porch, balanced on either side of the transept by a north tower and an organ loft, both with ground-floor porches. Beyond the transept lies a three-bay choir and a single-bay sanctuary. The architectural style is eclectic and characteristically inter-war, drawing on early Gothic with elements of Tudor Gothic and Art Deco.

The east wall is blank but features a foundation stone and a late Gothic niche set within a raised central panel. The sanctuary is lit by tall lancets. The roof projects forward over the east and west bays of the choir, topped by south-facing light chamfered and stone-mullioned windows flanking cross-gabled and projecting central bays. The southernmost bay contains a vestry set below an open pointed arch that frames a recessed bay with a matching lancet. The projecting two-storey hip-roofed organ loft and porch on the south side features similar mullioned windows on its east and west sides, with a chamfered late Gothic doorway.

The two-stage north tower has triple lancets to its recessed upper stage, with stone chamfered coursing above and at the impost level of the centre lancets. The north porch is accessed from the north side, with a door architrave in typical abstracted late Gothic style. Each side of the nave features three tall lancets set in projecting cross gables, each pair flanked by flat-roofed blocks projecting forward with single-light windows in chamfered stone surrounds that light the interior passage aisles. The west end has a simple bellcote above triple lancets and porch, with a parapet stepped over a late Gothic doorway.

The interior is dominated by an open timber roof. The nave is articulated by broad pointed transverse arches springing from floor level, each containing recessed soffit panels and openings to the passage aisles. These arches are linked by short pointed-arched bays whose walls terminate just above the impost level of the transverse arches, creating open views into the passage aisle roofs. Similar ground-springing arches articulate the transept and choir, with the chancel arch being narrower and more conventional.

This church ranks among the finest examples of inter-war garrison architecture in England, alongside the garrison churches at Bulford Camp and Larkhill in Wiltshire (1920 and 1937 respectively). It is remarkably well-detailed and boldly handled, with clear precedents in Markham's solid geometry and internal design derived from the Edwardian churches of Prior and Stokes, and close inter-war comparisons to the work of Temple Moore and Goodhart-Rendel.

The church's construction between 1939 and 1941 acquired symbolic importance given its location in one of the garrisons closest to occupied France and the threats posed by repeated Nazi propaganda broadcasts to its completion. Fighter cover was provided during its dedication in July 1941. No other military building combining such architectural quality and symbolic importance was completed during the war. Although the church closed for regular services after a Folkestone church was destroyed by bombing in May 1942, it continued to be used by servicemen bound for overseas service as a place of prayer and contemplation for the remainder of the conflict.