Former Church of St Mark

Former Church of St Mark

This former Anglican parish church stands on St Mark's Road and now operates as St Mark's Community Centre. Built between 1830 and 1832 in Perpendicular Gothic Revival style, it was designed by G.P. Manners. The church was declared redundant in 1973 and reopened as a community centre in 1975. A chancel was added in 1883 by Thomas Ames of Wilson and Willcox, and internal modifications were made during the 1975 conversion.

The building is constructed of limestone ashlar with slate roofs. The exterior features a five-bay aisled nave with pinnacle-capped buttresses. A four-stage tower dominates the west end, fitted with diagonal buttresses, crocketed finials, and a cushed openwork parapet. The upper stage of the tower has arched and slatted belfry openings to each face. Above the entrance stands a three-light west window to the ringing chamber, with part-glazed west doors set within a drip-mould. The tower is flanked by porches on either side, each with smaller arched windows.

The east end features an added polygonal chancel extension, with a vestry to the north and a former organ loft to the south. Both the north and south sides contain five three-light windows with drip-moulds, divided by buttresses with three offsets. Angle buttresses at each end rise as square crocketed pinnacles above a plain balustrade and cornice mould. On the south side, plank doors provide access to an entrance lobby. The building displays high coped gables, with two-light aisle windows at the east and west ends, and a finial with cross to the east. The north side includes a flight of steps leading to a former boiler house with a small flue to the main east gable. The narrow chancel features five tall two-light Decorated lights with drip-moulds set beneath a deep sill band, under cornice and blocking course. A small metal ridge ventilator sits at the apex. A high plinth with double offset runs continuously around the entire exterior.

The interior displays a highly characteristic late Georgian Gothic character with slender piers. The five-bay nave has piers without capitals carrying four-centred arched braces supporting a shallowly pitched ceiling. Aisle ceilings are also flat with bracing. The west arch to the tower is now glazed. The chancel arch is distinctly Victorian, representing the later fulfilment of the Gothic Revival, with a moulded arch displaying ball-flower decoration carried on triple shafts above corbel-heads. The chancel is reached via two marble steps and is now enclosed to form additional rooms. An open cusped arch-braced roof in pine with boarding to the ceiling stands above. Cast iron roof trusses of simple design with open spandrels support the low pitched ceiling, each fitted with large pierced ridge ventilators. Aisle roofs are flat, also supported by cast iron trusses. The walls are plain plastered and the original board floors remain. At the west end, lobbies contain broad timber geometrical stairs to the galleries, and a central lobby beneath the tower features a cusped triple arched stone inner entrance. The former sanctuary retains a gabled and cushed stone reredos and a 1932 stained glass central window. A stone pulpit remains in situ. The building has been internally subdivided with partitioned aisles but remains essentially intact.

St Mark's was the last of three Commissioners' Churches to be built in Bath, established with a grant from 1824 to serve the expanding suburb of Lyncombe. Consecrated in 1832, construction cost £10,427 and provided 631 reserved seats and 551 free seats in pews. In 1883, when the chancel was added, the galleries were replaced with lighter versions and the pews were replaced with open benches. Following its declaration of redundancy in 1973, a slate tablet on an interior pier records the building's reopening as a Community Centre on 30 June 1975. The conversion was initiated by Cicely Edmunds, then Mayoress of Bath, who played an instrumental role in bringing the project to completion.