Church Of St Osmund

This early 20th-century church represents one of the most significant examples of Byzantine Revival architecture in England, built in two principal phases with later additions and repairs. It was Professor ES Prior's last major work.

The initial phase (1904-05) comprised the east end, crossing, north transept and beginning of the aisled nave, designed by GAB Livesey of Bournemouth in a free Byzantine style. Professor ES Prior, working in partnership with Arthur Grove, completed the building between 1913 and 1916, adding the dome and rebuilding the transepts. The dome proved structurally unsound and was partly rebuilt by Sidney Tugwell in 1922-24 after cracks were discovered. The choir vestry with sacristy was built in 1927 to Prior's original design. The south aisle failed and was rebuilt in 1950 by L Magnus Austin. A parish room extension was added in 1991.

The building is distinguished by its exceptional brickwork. Livesey's first phase used brick with roughcast render and red terracotta dressings. Prior continued the work in thin hand-made brick specially manufactured locally near Wareham, ranging in colour from yellow through various shades of red to brown and purple, all laid in Flemish bond with red and yellow terracotta dressings. The structure employs reinforced concrete vaults, an advanced technique for the period. The roofs are clay pantiles except for the copper-covered dome and apex.

The plan forms a Latin cross within a rectangle: an apsed chancel, domed crossing, transepts and nave, with the rectangle completed by the choir vestry and sacristy north of the chancel, a chapel to the south, and nave aisles.

Exterior

The east end comprises a single-bay chancel with an eastern apse and semicircular ambulatory. The ambulatory features a round-arched red terracotta corbel table, cavetto-moulded yellow terracotta eaves and a ridged pantile roof. The apse is articulated by red terracotta pilaster strips dividing the wall into regular panels with three round-arched heads. It has a moulded frieze and semicircular brick coping with a pair of green glazed terracotta colonnettes supporting coping gablets on either side, mounted on diagonal pilaster buttresses framing the gable wall.

The chancel has a two-light window on each side with round-arched heads to the lights, plain jambs and a central shaft with composite capital. It features a round-arched corbel table and moulded yellow terracotta eaves. The south chancel chapel has an apsidal east end with three small windows at high level with round-arched heads, corbelled brick eaves, a pantile roof and a gablet over the apse framing a relief carving of a cross and the date 1916. A covered stair to the south side is lit by a single-light window with triangular head and plain-tile roof. A later 20th-century addition projects south of the chapel apse.

The two-storey, three-bay vestry and sacristy range on the north side of the chancel stands at the same height as the north aisle. It has a shallow segmental apse to the east end with small round-headed windows at first-floor level. The north side has two windows and a door beside the transept with round-arched heads, and circular windows to the first floor, all with raised brick splayed surrounds. Semicircular attached brick shafts between bays, doubled to the angles, rise from the plinth and merge with the parapet which is corbelled out on segmental arches with rounded brick coping.

Both transepts have a circular red terracotta window with eight divisions around an octagonal centre set high in the gable walls. These have raised brick splayed surrounds framed by ridged brick string courses top and bottom and by semicircular attached shafts either side joining parapets corbelled out on segmental brick arches with rounded brick coping. The side walls of the transepts have corbelled brick eaves. The north transept has a semicircular brick shaft at the centre of the wall below the window and similar paired shafts to the corners and either side. The south transept does not project as far as the north and has a niche in the gable framed by similar shafts, with an aisle in front featuring a pair of windows with round-arched heads and raised brick splayed surrounds separated by a central semicircular attached shaft.

The low circular dome has circular windows with similar surrounds to the intermediate directions, a brick frieze corbelled out on segmental brick arches, stepped brick eaves and a conical roof.

The nave has a clerestory with five bays of circular windows with similar surrounds and corbelled brick eaves continuing the transept eaves. The aisles have five bays of large windows with round-arched heads, similar surrounds and parapets like those of the vestry range. The north aisle has similar brick shafts between bays, paired to alternate bays and to each end. The aisle roof is broken by the slopes of internal buttresses joining similar shafts to the clerestory. The south aisle has prominent offset brick buttresses with round-headed arches outside the aisle walls and a pair of continuous semicircular brick mouldings like shafts following the slopes and offsets of the buttresses.

Both aisles have a further recessed bay at the west end. That to the north has a double-leaf north door with a wide terracotta surround with flat-arched head and a niche above the door framing a Portland stone statue of St Osmund by Alec Miller. These bays have parapets continuing those of the aisles and two windows to the west at the same height as the niche, of similar proportions with round-arched heads, with shafts to the angles and a single shaft between the windows.

The west front has a double-leaf central door with a plain terracotta surround with flat-arched head, deeply recessed within brick splays and a broad segmental terracotta arch decorated in relief with a vine trail. The arch supports an arcaded brick balustrade between polygonal turrets which flank the nave front with triangular heads to arches and stepped brick parapet (now dismantled). Above is a large circular terracotta window with twelve divisions around an inner circle, set against a background of square brick panels with central raised lozenges. Above this is a round-headed arcaded gallery, then diapered brick panelling below a stepped brick cornice.

The flanking turrets have semicircular attached brick shafts to the centre of the sides beginning at the level of the springing of the segmental entrance arch. The left turret has small windows with triangular heads lighting the stair. The turrets have projecting corbelled brick friezes on segmental arches and stepped brick eaves below the sloping base of lantern turrets which have narrow round-headed openings and scalloped conical brick roofs. The nave gable between the turrets has stepped rounded brick coping and a diamond-patterned brick pediment. The church has battered plinths with roll-moulded terracotta coping throughout.

Interior

The chancel apse has a semicircular peristyle to the ambulatory with fluted Ionic columns bearing a curved entablature, all of red terracotta. The semi-dome of the apse is framed by a buff terracotta arch on plain terracotta piers jointed to resemble ashlar with red terracotta Byzantine-style capitals. Similar round arches, piers and capitals define the crossing, with yellow terracotta winged angel busts to the angles. Curved walls flank the steps up to the chancel with balustrades, all in buff terracotta.

The nave has similar terracotta transverse piers and arches with red terracotta capitals decorated with moulded foliage ornament in relief. Between the arches are timber roofs with chamfered ridge pieces and rafters. Three-bay arcades feature plain pilaster piers and round arches in buff terracotta with thin moulded capitals in red terracotta with egg and dart decoration. Similar transverse arches span the aisles, which have reinforced concrete groin vaults.

The outer aisles have transverse arches pierced through internal buttresses with segmental-arched heads and concrete barrel vaults borne on intermediate columns between the principal buttress piers, creating six bays either side corresponding with the windows. The plain classical columns have moulded bases on square plinths and red terracotta capitals with foliage decoration, bearing plain lintels.

Fittings

The High Altar has a baldacchino based on that of San Clemente in Rome. The wrought-iron railings to the peristyle are 18th-century and came from St Mary-le-Bow in the City of London. The altar cross and six candlesticks of 1925 are by Bainbridge Reynolds, who also created the tabernacle and candlesticks in the Incarnation Chapel south of the chancel and the altar cross in the Lady Chapel in the south transept. The grille in the arch between the two chapels is decorated in gold, black and white with a painted relief of the Annunciation by McDonald Gill. Inscriptions to the altar of the Incarnation and over the sacristy door are by his brother Eric Gill.

The pulpit of coloured marbles with mosaic panels dates from 1922. The lectern of 1926 by Bainbridge Reynolds has a reading desk and candlesticks of hand-beaten bronze. The medieval fluted limestone font bowl is probably 13th-century from Sturminster Marshall, mounted on a square stone base by ES Prior with hollow-chamfered angles. More wrought-iron railings in the crypt came from St Mary-le-Bow, where they originally enclosed the tomb of Thomas Newton, Bishop of Bristol, who died in 1782.

The stained glass uses Prior's thick hand-made patent glass in abstract patterns.

The War Memorial in the south aisle features a statue of Christ as Christus Rex, created in 1920 by McDonald Gill.