Church Of St Luke

Church of St Luke, Wimborne Road

This is a substantial Gothic church built in two phases: the nave and aisles were constructed in 1897-8 by the Bournemouth architects Creeke, Gifford & Oakley, while the east end was added in 1912-13. The building is constructed of red brick with limestone dressings (probably Bath stone, with Portland stone sills) and tiled roofs.

The church follows a traditional Gothic plan with a five-bay nave, lean-to aisles on both sides, a south-west porch, a three-bay chancel, and a south chapel. Subsidiary porches flank the nave at the east ends of the north and south aisles.

Externally, the church is dominated by long, unbroken rooflines punctuated by a leaded and shingled fleche. The west front facing the road features a tall buttressed gable flanked by low symmetrical lean-to aisles with square-headed three-light windows. A large five-light west window contains Geometric tracery with a rose light. The long clerestory contains ten arched windows, two per bay, with a continuous hoodmould of rubbed brick. The building lacks a conventional tower; instead, a Gothic fleche rises over the east end of the nave, and a short polygonal turret stands against the north-east vestries. The junction between the original nave and the later eastern addition is visible in the brickwork and roof line. Both east and west gables are flanked by buttresses of brick with stone gables and set-offs.

The interior walls are constructed of buff brick with banding and voussoirs of red brick, dressed stone framing the arcades. The nave arcades feature double-chamfered arches springing from quatrefoil columns. The roof structure consists of timber king-post trusses with tie-beams. The north and south chancel walls contain large blind arches framing the clerestory lights. The south chapel connects to the chancel through a half-sized arcade of four arches on clustered columns. The chancel floor is laid in grey and green marble, while the nave and aisles have wood block floors.

The church contains notable fixtures from the early 20th century. The elaborate triptych reredos, designed by Walter E. Tower of Kempe & Co. between 1924 and 1929, is painted and gilded with figures beneath pinnacled canopies. Tower also designed the east window above in 1924. Good stained glass by Powell & Co. includes windows in the south chapel east (1949), the south side of the south chapel (an undated first window and a second signed by C.C. Powell, 1936), and a war memorial window in the north aisle west designed by J.H. Dearle for Morris & Co. in 1923. The choir stalls, dating from the late 1930s, are of oak with substantial poppy heads and open traceried stall fronts. An unusual communion rail of oak on wrought-iron standards with Art Nouveau elements runs across both the chancel and south chapel. At the chancel step is a low wrought-iron screen and gates made by J. White & Son of Frome in 1937. A fine oak pulpit dating from circa 1945-50, designed by W.H. Randoll Blacking, features a flaring wineglass stem with two tiers of panelling and gilded and coloured shields in the upper tier. The octagonal font, dating from circa 1898, has quatrefoiled panels on a clustered shaft with a pierced conical cover. Gothic Baptistery panelling and rails in oak were made by Wake & Dean of Bristol in 1935. The south chapel contains a modern cross with a large crucifix of pearwood, reportedly (though doubtfully) of 16th-century date, purchased in Florence by a parishioner. Original chairs remain in the south chapel, while the nave has recent upholstered seating. Cast-iron central heating radiators with decorative castings, probably Edwardian, are distributed around the nave.

The church began as a Mission Room attached to St. John's Moordown on the corner of Wimborne Road and Latimer Road, opening on 10 November 1880 and being dedicated as a church on 13 March 1884. The present site was given by Mr. Cooper Dean of Littledown in 1893, and the foundation stone was laid on 27 May 1897. Built by F. Hoare and Sons, the first phase—consisting of the present nave up to the fourth bay from the west—was dedicated on 16 May 1898. The east end was begun in 1912, completed, and opened on St. Luke's Day, 18 October 1913. The entire building was consecrated on 13 January 1915 by the Bishop of Southampton. St. Luke's became a separate parish on 24 September 1917.