Church of St Luke

Church of St Luke

A church built in 1867 to the designs of Bath architects Hickes and Isaac in the Gothic Revival style, and extended circa 1912 by Bath architect Mowbray A. Green. The 1867 work is Decorated Gothic, while the 1912 extension is Perpendicular Gothic.

Materials and Construction

The building is constructed in Bath limestone ashlar with Welsh slate roofs. The vestry and chancel roof features banded red and grey slates.

Plan and Development

The original 1867 design created a cruciform plan with north and south transepts, a south porch, north tower, chancel and north vestry. In 1912, the south aisle was added and the nave was rebuilt on its original footprint before being extended westward by two bays. A baptistry was added to the west end in 1913, and a further vestry was erected in 1914.

Exterior

The nave comprises five bays, each containing a three-light Perpendicular window. On the north side, where the ground falls away, a lower storey at the west end contains four-light Tudor windows. Buttresses with offsets separate each bay. The west end window has four lights, while the chancel east end window is stained glass with plate tracery, featuring three cusped lights with two sexfoils and one trefoil above. The transept windows have plate tracery with four cusped lights and two trefoils and a quatrefoil above. The stained glass windows, many of which are dated, range from 1925 to 1973.

The broach spire is square in plan with buttresses to the front and north side elevations. The bell stage contains two-light windows with wooden louvres and stiff leaf foliage to the capitals. Each face of the spire has a lucarne, and a decorative iron cross surmounts the top.

Interior

Stone columns in the south aisle have moulded Perpendicular Gothic capitals with head stops to the arches. The pointed arch at the east end is supported on stone columns with foliage decoration to the capitals. The arches to the vestry and the original organ room feature ball-flower label stops. The interior contains a carved wooden reredos (circa 1951), a stone font, and a Purbeck marble and Bath stone memorial tablet commemorating Reverend Charles Doudney. A 1969 organ is located in the north transept.

Historical Context

St Luke's Church was constructed in 1867 by the local Bath architects Hickes and Isaac. Reverend Charles Edmund Doudney became vicar in 1907 and oversaw a programme of changes to the church, instigating the 1912 extensions designed by Mowbray A. Green.