Church Of St Alban

Church of St Alban

Built 1907-9 by the architect G.H. Fellowes Prynne, this is an impressive Late Free Gothic church constructed in rock-faced grey stone (described in contemporary reports as Kentish rag) with red tiled roofs and a slate roof over the tower base. The interior combines red and white brick with Bath stone dressings and banding.

The church comprises a chancel, a five and a half bay nave with aisles, and transepts formed from the eastern two bays of the aisles. The north transept is anchored by a tower base to its west and balanced by an apsidal Lady Chapel to its east. A west narthex contains a central apsidal baptistery, while vestries and other spaces occupy a crypt beneath the east end.

The exterior exploits a steeply sloping site to dramatic effect. The chancel rises prominently over the crypt, facing Charminster Road. The east end is dominated by a high five-light window with dense small-scale Decorated tracery, with mullions continuing below into a tier of arcaded panelling, beneath which runs a chequered stone frieze around the chancel. Crypt windows feature segmental lights in pairs under segmental outer arches with Perpendicular tracery. An ogee-gabled bellcote sits over the chancel arch.

The apsidal Lady Chapel projects eastward from the north transept with a band of seven lancets, flanked by irregular angled staircase projections that create dynamic visual interest. The deep transepts have two cross-gables each. The two-storeyed tower base, topped with a hipped slate roof, sits west of the north transept; its west door has an ogee arch under crested panelling. The original design, shown in a watercolour perspective preserved in the church, included a tall needle spire that was never built.

The west narthex features an embattled parapet and ogee doorways, with the apsidal baptistery at its centre lit by five lancets, and a very large seven-light west window above. The low lean-to aisles have broad flat-headed windows and parapets with ramped depressions at each bay. Clerestory windows of three lights with cambered heads sit within blank relieving arches. The flowing Decorated tracery and proportions develop themes from Prynne's earlier work at St Martin, Worcester.

The interior is powerful and spatially dynamic. Mainly constructed in red brick with bold Bath stone banding around the arcades and walls, creating an almost Byzantine effect. Hexagonal piers have triangular projections facing into the nave and aisles, with their points continuing upward as little triangular wall shafts. Segmental aisle arches sit within giant arches framing the clerestory. In the transepts and above the aisle openings, the walls are faced with white brick relieved by thin red bands.

The apsidal Lady Chapel is intimate and opens off the north transept, its roof timbers arranged in a radial pattern echoing the plan. It has a small serpentine step for the altar, floored with mosaic. A narrow galleried space with a half arch opens between the Lady Chapel and chancel into the transept. The aisles are low and narrow, featuring transverse half-arches like flying buttresses opening into the transepts, and a segmental transverse arch at each bay westward, with quatrefoil-pierced spandrels.

Wagon roofs run throughout, painted in the chancel and stained in the nave, with a painted ceilure over the sanctuary. The nave roof has iron ties. The chancel breast wall is Portland stone inlaid with coloured marble lozenges. Floors are parquet except in the chancel, which has black and white marble chequerwork.

The high altar has hangings beneath a Gothic stone canopy. The pulpit is robust Portland stone with Gothic tracery in rectangular panels and a figure of St Alban. A fine wrought-iron and brass screen crowns the chancel breast wall, with splendid gates; metal screens were a speciality of Prynne. Oak choir stalls and chancel fittings feature open traceried fronts, with Flamboyant tracery in the parclose screens. Coved galleries flank the sides, with the organ on the south gallery. The font is modelled in alabaster as a large kneeling angel holding a shell bowl, based on an early 19th-century model by Thorwaldsen; a similar example exists at Emmanuel Church, Weston-super-Mare, made by G.J. Hunt.

The east window contains stained glass by William Morris & Co. Five narrow lancets in the baptistery hold stained glass by Percy Bacon, dated 1911. Original school-style oak chairs provide nave seating. The western bay-and-a-half of the nave is divided by a half-glazed oak screen, a Second World War memorial.

Built as a District church serving the expanding Bournemouth suburbs of Winton and Moordown, subordinate to the mother church of St Augustine, the foundation stone was laid on 8 October 1907 and the church opened on 3 June 1909. It was consecrated as a parish church on 17 June 1913. Like many Bournemouth churches, St Alban belongs to the High Anglican tradition.

G.H. Fellowes Prynne (1853-1927) emigrated to Canada in 1871 and studied under Richard Windeyer of Toronto from 1872-5. He returned to England to work in the office of G.E. Street, establishing independent practice in 1879. He became established as a respected church architect and served as diocesan architect for Oxford from 1913.

The church remains largely unaltered, retaining original fittings including stained glass by Morris & Co. and Percy Bacon, and wrought-iron and brass chancel screens. It is set among streets of prosperous Edwardian villas that reflect the middle-class congregation for which it was built.