Parish Church Of St Luke

Parish Church of St Luke

This small Gothic Revival village church was built between 1874 and 1876 to designs by Benjamin Ferrey & Son, the well-known architectural partnership. The foundation stone was laid on 15 April 1874, and the church opened in 1876. Benjamin Ferrey (1810–1880) was a prominent Gothic Revival architect who had trained under A.C. Pugin and knew A.W.N. Pugin, whose biography he later wrote. He was diocesan architect to Bath and Wells from 1841 until his death and undertook extensive work in that diocese. He worked in partnership with his son E.B. Ferrey during his later years.

The church is constructed of red brick in English bond with limestone dressings, probably Bath stone, and is roofed in blue slate. The plan comprises a small nave, a south porch, a south transept with a vestry to its east, and a short chancel. A projected north transept and a two-bay enlargement of the chancel were never built.

The exterior is executed in early Gothic style. The gabled west end, which faces the village green, is topped by a simple bellcote and contains two pairs of lancets, each with a small oculus above, divided by a central buttress. The two-light nave windows also feature an oculus, executed in plate tracery. At the last bay of the nave on the north side is a dressed stone arch filled by a temporary wall, marking the position of the planned transept. The east wall, similarly built as a temporary wall in anticipation of future works, has three evenly spaced lancets and an oculus in the gable.

The interior is brick-faced with bands of dressed stone linking the windows at sill level and at the springing point of the arches. A broad transverse arch sits close to the roof line west of the transept, whilst the slightly lower chancel arch springs from corbels below the abaci. The roof is timber-panelled with a mansard-shaped section and semicircular trusses on corbels.

The principal fixtures are of high quality. The east wall is dominated by a full-width reredos of stone, almost certainly designed by Ferrey, with a flat top at sill level and higher pointed arches at each end. Recessed panels are painted with the Creed, Lord's Prayer, Ten Commandments and other texts, with some diaper patterning. The font is executed in 13th-century style with an octagonal bowl mounted on grey marble clustered shafts. An oak pulpit features blank traceried arches, foliate spandrels, and a deep foliage frieze at the top. The triple east window and west window contain stained glass signed by T.F. Curtis of Ward & Hughes, dated 1899–1900. The nave and transept are fitted with cathedral glass in pale blue, green and pink. Beneath the west window is a marble war memorial formed of three tablets arranged as a cross. The nave retains its original bench pews of unstained oak. The choir stall fronts and communion rail are unobtrusive 20th-century additions.

The church is notable for its honest use of materials—plain brick and stone—and for its careful preservation of Ferrey's design intentions. The Victorian fittings work harmoniously with the structure to create a sense of honest simplicity, one of the key aspirations of the Gothic Revival movement. The building remains almost unaltered in all its essentials.