Church Of St Saviour

Church of St Saviour

A Gothic Revival church built between 1829 and 1832, probably by John Pinch the younger to his father's design, with a chancel added in 1882 by C.E. Davis. The church was the second of three Bath Commissioners' Churches, built following an 1824 Act and founded by Archdeacon Moysey, who called for a 'Plain Free Church... in the Doric Order' in 1824. The building was consecrated in April 1832 and cost £10,600, seating 1,096 worshippers, with the Church Commissioners providing funds for 700 free places. The church stands in a rectangular churchyard enclosed by a dwarf wall with railings and marked entrances at its north-east and south-east corners.

The church is built in limestone ashlar, oriented north-south, with a rectangular six-bay nave flanked by east and west aisles, a tower at the south end, a chancel to the north, and vaults below. The nave parapet is coped and pierced by quatrefoils set diagonally in squares. The lower six-bay aisles have contrasting coped parapets pierced by trefoils in triangles, divided by tall buttresses offset at transom level, gabled below the parapet with crocketed finials above. Six three-light windows line either side, set within hood moulds with two orders of lights. The sixth bay at each aisle end forms the north and south porches, with double doors set below shields in recessed panels enriched with Gothic panelling and placed within ogee-arched hood moulds featuring complex crocketing decoration and large mask stops. These have diagonally-leaded windows with narrow margin panes and moulded plinth. A single-storey twentieth-century block adjoins the east end of the north aisle; the east end of the south aisle and south of the chancel have two lower blocks in similar style to the aisles, housing the organ and vestry, each with a two-light window.

The tower, facing Holland Road, is divided into three stages. Its door resembles others, with a canopied niche above. Octagonal clasping buttresses diminish at each stage and terminate as turrets with Gothic panelling to each facet and crocketed finials. At first-stage level is a frieze with latticed decoration similar to that of the aisle parapets. A three-light opening at second stage has ogee heads and four pierced quatrefoils in circles; clock faces appear on the south and west sides in the upper part of the tower window. The second-stage frieze matches the nave parapet. The third stage has two two-light openings similar to that below, separated by a diagonally-set buttress with crocketed finial rising from an angel corbel beneath the frieze. The tower parapet matches that of the nave. Two-light windows punctuate the west ends of the aisles.

The high, gabled three-bay chancel, facing Wallace Road, is built of random-sized stone blocks. It has a coped parapet pierced by two tiers of arcading with plain piers to the centre, quoins and cornice below, and a stone cross on its apex. The five-light stained-glass east window is set within a shallow pointed arch with sloping labels to the hood-mould, positioned over a tall blank plinth, featuring complex trefoil-headed tracery to upper and lower lights. Each side has three four-light leaded windows with mullions and transoms; the tracery is Y-form with trefoil heads to each light and tinted glass, set within hood-moulds connected by a moulded string course. Double doors at the east ends of the aisles provide access.

The spacious interior has slender piers characteristic of late Georgian Gothic interiors, with a vaulted nave ceiling. A door from the south aisle leads into a hall with a stone open-string staircase to the gallery, featuring stick balusters and an oak handrail wreathed over a curtail step. The two western bays were converted in the twentieth century into a church room, retaining two original box pews to the rear. The nave has slender piers with engaged shafts on four cardinal faces. Moulded splays continue into wide equilateral arches carrying the wall face. The piers bear elaborate semi-octagonal corbels; from the crown of the arches spring the ribs of the plaster four-centred section vault leading to the rear deep raked gallery. The nave and aisles have stone-flagged floors. The aisle ceilings, probably from circa 1882, feature brattished rails and Gothic panelling. The east end of the south aisle is richly painted and dominated by an organ of circa 1882 by Sweetland. The chancel arch rests on geometric-shaped corbels. The chancel has a fan-vaulted roof and a polychromatic tile floor beneath a high set-back east window, with three windows to each side featuring thick pierced stone balustrades over segmental arched recesses. In the south-east corner is a diagonally-planked vestry door with ornate wrought-iron hinges in a slightly ogee arch. A wrought-iron and oak communion rail and a Gothic Revival reredos of marble and stone, added in 1886 and designed by J.D. Sedding and carved by Harry Hems, occupy the chancel. The reredos plinth is of similar marble to the altar, possibly twentieth century. The west wall, with elaborate High Victorian stencilling, has double doors flanking the gallery on each side of the aisles and a high pointed-arched recess. Fittings include galleries with original pews, a late nineteenth-century octagonal oak pulpit, an octagonal stone font, later nineteenth-century pews, stained-glass windows, and numerous wall monuments.

The west end of the nave was glazed in circa 1983. The chancel and crossing were reordered in 2002 when a kitchen and new staircase in the west end were installed. The churchyard grounds to the west contain a raised terrace supported by a retaining wall; to the east is a War Memorial.