The Church Of St John The Evangelist, Hale

THE CHURCH OF ST JOHN THE EVANGELIST, HALE

This parish church was designed by Benjamin Ferrey and completed in 1844. The north aisle was widened in 1861, also under Ferrey's direction. Later additions include a north vestry, south-east chapel, and west porch.

The building is constructed of coursed clunch with freestone dressings and has slate roofs. The plan comprises a nave, chancel, south aisle, wider north aisle, south porch, west porch, south-east chapel, a circular bell-turret positioned between the aisle and chapel, and north-east vestries.

The exterior is designed in Norman style, employing round arches and flat pilasters characteristic of the 12th century. Windows throughout are small, particularly on the side elevations, with clerestory windows being little more than narrow slits. The north aisle windows are single lights. The nave and aisles span four bays, divided by flat pilasters. The nave, north aisle, and chancel each have separate gabled roofs, whilst the south aisle has a lean-to roof.

The most distinctive architectural feature is the circular turret, which rises through four stages. Its upper stage displays unusual two-light openings in the cardinal directions under round super-arches, with raised lozenge patterns between the openings and arch heads. The turret is crowned with a conical roof having courses with a lapped effect. At the east end, the wall features three equal-height round-headed lights with a spoked wheel window above them.

The interior is spacious, with a tall nave and wide north aisle. All walls are rendered and whitened. Between the nave and aisles are arcades of four bays plus a very narrow fifth bay at the east end. These arcades have tall circular piers with cushion capitals bearing fluted detail variants. The round arches above have one step and a slight chamfer. Between the nave and chancel stands a tall arch with a billet-moulded hood, moulded arch head, and responds dying into semi-conical corbels.

The roofing varies throughout: the nave has a tie-beam roof with arch-braces and queen-post struts; the south aisle is a lean-to; the north aisle employs hammer-beam construction; and the chancel has semi-circular arch-braces to a collar.

The font, probably original to the church, features intersected Norman arcading. Most other furnishings are later than the original building, including a pulpit dated 1913, well-crafted oak pews, and a tiled reredos. The east end of the chancel is filled with stained glass by Clayton and Bell depicting the Crucifixion and scenes from the Life of Christ. On the chancel south wall is an inscription in memory of Bishop Charles Richard Sumner (1790–1874), the church's founder, and his wife, created by his grandson, the artist Heywood Sumner, around 1895. The church also contains numerous conventional 19th-century wall monuments.

The church was promoted by Bishop Sumner, who became bishop of Winchester at age 37 in 1827 and served as diocesan until 1869. Living locally, Sumner was concerned to provide a place of worship for the expanding population. At the 1841 census, Farnham parish had a population of 6,684, with 1,269 people in the district to be served by the new church. The original building cost £2,337, financed through subscriptions (including contributions from Sumner) and grants (the Incorporated Church Building Society provided £150). Sumner consecrated the church on 8 November 1844. As the population continued to grow, the north aisle was widened to increase accommodation to 595 seats. St John's became the church for a separate parish on 29 November 1865. Sumner and his wife are buried here.

Benjamin Ferrey (1810–1880) was a well-known Victorian church architect and pupil of Auguste Charles Pugin. He knew A W N Pugin, Pugin's son, and later became his biographer (1861). Ferrey established independent practice around 1834 and served as diocesan architect to Bath and Wells from 1841 until his death, a position explaining his extensive church work in that diocese. Although renowned as a Gothic revivalist, Ferrey occasionally worked in neo-Romanesque, as demonstrated here and in his contemporary church at Morpeth, Northumberland (1843–1846). His approach at St John's, employing simple Norman features, was to create an "early" feeling to the building, specifically evoking the early 12th century. This choice, and the broader Victorian use of medieval architecture, reflected Anglicans' desire to present continuity with the pre-Reformation Church. From the mid-1840s onwards, Gothic architecture of around 1300 became dominant, accepted as the most beautiful style and therefore most appropriate for the House of God. The short-lived Norman revival thus ended abruptly, making churches like St John's quite unusual.