Chapel Of Ease Of St Luke

Chapel of Ease of St Luke

This chapel of ease to Brenchley parish church was built between 1874 and 1876, designed by the architect Basil Champneys. It is constructed of snecked local sandstone with the lower courses and those below the eaves brought to course, a peg-tile roof, and a porch that is partly timber-framed. The belfry is roofed with wooden shingles, and there is a stone stack. The building demonstrates an eclectic mixture of Decorated and Early English architectural styles.

The plan comprises a nave, chancel, three-bay south aisle, north-west porch, south-east organ chamber and vestry, and a west-end bell turret with a broach spine riding the ridge.

Exterior

The chancel has low clasping buttresses with moulded batters and a moulded string course below the sill of the east window. This east window is in the Decorated style with three lights and traceried tracery, topped with a hoodmould. The north side of the church forms the show front. The north wall of the chancel contains a statue niche set high up with traceried spandrels featuring mouchettes, a cusped arch, and a statue of St Luke. A two-light square-headed window with a hoodmould and flamboyant mouchette tracery is positioned in the chancel's head.

The nave has a low clasping buttress at the north-east corner and two high-set Decorated-style two-light north windows with hoodmoulds. The south aisle sits under a catslide roof with three square-headed three-light windows featuring trefoil-headed lights with pierced spandrels. The organ chamber is under a catslide roof, with a flat-roofed vestry adjoining. The east door into the vestry is original, with ovolo-moulded cover strips and a square-headed doorway topped by a decorative depressed ogee arch.

The west end has thicker masonry at the base of the west wall, rising to form a deep sill to the west window. This window is square-headed with a relieving arch above, a coved architrave, a hoodmould with carved label stops, and three lights, with tracery based on Decorated forms. The belfry is weatherboarded with two-light trefoil-headed mullioned windows on the north and south faces and a broach spire, which may be loosely based on the spire at St Mary Magdalen, Cowden.

The north-west porch is a timber-framed structure on a stone base with moulded cusped bargeboards on shaped brackets. The tall timber outer doorway has a deep hollow moulding with runout stops. The inner doorway is eclectic in character, featuring cylindrical jambs on three-sided bases with idiosyncratic stops, and mouldings of the arch that die into the jambs. The hoodmould has vine-carved label stops. The door has ovolo-moulded cover strips and large strap hinges.

Interior

The walls are plastered with exposed stone dressings to the windows. The three-bay nave roof may be based on the 14th-century roof at Brenchley parish church. Moulded tie beams with traceried spandrels support tall, slender crown posts, each with four up-braces to a six-sided canted boarded roof divided into panels by moulded ribs. The chancel roof is six-sided with carved bosses at the junctions of the ribs. The south aisle roof is a boarded panelled lean-to.

The south aisle is narrow with three bays. The arcade features octagonal piers with moulded capitals and double hollow-chamfered arches, with the eastern respond being an Early English-style engaged shaft with a bell capital. The chancel arch is tall and moulded with similar engaged shafts; a matching arch leads into the organ chamber.

The most unusual feature of the interior is the openwork timber structure supporting the west-end belfry, which functions internally as the baptistry. The bases of the four massive posts are encased in panelling, each side with a tier of plain bracing positioned high under the nave roof.

The chancel contains a cinquefoil-headed recess on the south wall with an engaged crocketted finial and a trefoil-headed aumbry to the east. A doorway into the vestry matches the external vestry door. A 1926 crested timber reredos with blind traceried panels is flanked by dado panelling to north and south. Late 19th-century choir stalls are present. Book rests and a communion rail with wrought-iron standards are installed. The nave and aisle have dado panelling and a set of late 19th-century open-backed benches with shaped moulded heads and carved scrolls on the bench ends. A small brass eagle lectern of conventional design dates from 1900, and the pulpit is tucked into the north-east corner of the nave with dado panelling against the walls and a simple partition of panels with blind cusped arches. An octagonal font rests on a moulded wineglass stem.

Stained Glass and Monuments

The north side of the chancel has two identical wall tablets in late 17th- or early 18th-century style commemorating Katherine Storr (died 1900) and Charles Storr (died 1922). The east window dates from 1892 and is by Kempe. The chancel north window is also by Kempe with a memorial date of 1896, though Pevsner dated it 1904. The eastern window in the nave has a memorial date of 1906 by Kempe and Towers, while the western window carries a memorial date of 1916.

The church cost £2,000 and was built on land given by Mr Philip Roberts of the Hat Mills, Brenchley. The use of local precedents in the design is particularly noteworthy.