Church Of St Ambrose

The Church of St Ambrose is a large parish church designed by C. Hodgson Fowler of Durham and constructed between 1898 and 1900, with the upper stage of the tower added in 1907. It is built of honey-coloured Bath stone with green Westmoreland slate roofs.

The church follows a Free Perpendicular style and comprises a seven-bay nave with lean-to aisles of six bays, a south-west porch, a north-west porch-tower, a chancel with a two-bay south chapel, a transeptal organ chamber to the north, and north-east vestries. A low brick and stone hall constructed in 1968 stands to the south with minimal visual impact on the church.

The long, high nave rises above lean-to aisles and features a clerestory with shallow pilaster buttresses. The aisle windows are two-light Perpendicular, while the clerestory windows contain three cusped lights with the centre one higher, an arrangement reminiscent of circa 1300 and the only Decorated tracery in the church. The gabled west front projects from the tower, which dominates the composition. The tower is of four stages, well proportioned and possibly based on Somerset models, with angle buttresses rising to polygonal pinnacles. It features an embattled parapet with concave gabled tops to the merlons and a small intermediate pinnacle on each side. The paired two-light bell openings have louvres, one transom, and ogee pinnacled hoodmoulds. The main entrance faces north through the tower base, with a richly moulded doorcase containing multiple shafts, slim flanking pinnacles, and a crocketed ogee hoodmould, accompanied by good Perpendicular traceried two-leaf doors. A rose window occupies the north gable of the north transept.

The ashlar-lined interior is dominated by the long, high nave, which features a fine timber roof with tie beams and collars, crown posts, and queen struts braced to the purlins. The nave arcades have moulded arches and shafted piers on a quatrefoil plan. The north aisle roof was destroyed by fire in 2006 and completely rebuilt in unstained oak to match the original design. The chancel has a boarded wagon roof with transverse ribs and subsidiary diagonal ribs forming lozenge panelling. The north and south chancel walls contain wall-shafts rising to big blind arches framing the clerestory lights. The east window has five lights with Perpendicular tracery and transoms in the heads of the sub-arches. Elaborate statuary niches flank this window. The floors in the body of the church are of pale grey terrazzo with coloured and patterned borders, except the seating areas which are floored with oak parquet. Scorched blocks remain in the north aisle floor as a reminder of the 2006 fire. The chancel and sanctuary have mosaic floors of buff with green, gold, and black patterned friezes. The south chapel is arranged as a Lady Chapel with a two-arched west entrance featuring a trumeau figure depicting the Virgin and Child.

The splendid reredos was designed by Temple Moore in 1914 and painted and gilded by Head & Son of Colchester. It features a high rectangular frame with a meandering leafy border and five standing angels across the top. The centre panel depicts the Crucifixion with the Annunciation below in a predella, flanked by two narrow side panels containing three tiers of saints each. It was dedicated on 19 November 1915. The font is a heavy octagonal cup-shaped bowl with concave gables on the sides and dense carved decoration, surrounded by a thick stem with eight slender colonnettes. Its designer is unknown. The font cover, probably designed by Richard Moore (son of Temple Moore) in 1912, is of oak with elaborate Gothic openwork and pinnacles. An open wrought-iron pulpit stands on a base of Devonshire marble. A tall chancel screen with matching gates is also of wrought-iron, with its lower part from the old church heightened to suit, styled Gothic with angel figures. The chancel stalls are of oak with linenfold fronts, seat backs with pierced friezes of Flamboyant tracery above and simplest panelling below. The bench ends have elaborate tracery with buttress-like detailing and large standing figures as finials. The sanctuary features exceptionally crisp traceried dado panelling with built-in sedilia. The south chapel has panelling with linenfold and coloured shields, and a gilded oak reredos in similar style with three relief panels in white marble.

The church contains much good stained glass. Twenty windows are by Burlison & Grylls, installed in the east end (circa 1897–1901) and aisles (circa 1904–18). The west window is by Powell & Sons, 1899, of six lights. A window in the south aisle west has been attributed to Lavers & Westlake, 1891 (unverified), and is dedicated to George Stopford Ram, vicar in the 1880s. This is one of four west windows that are ex situ, presumably from the previous church on Alumhurst Road.

Westbourne is a superior suburb of Victorian villas that grew rapidly after the arrival of the Midland Railway in 1874 and was incorporated into Bournemouth in 1884. St Ambrose is one of a number of spectacular High Church foundations in Bournemouth dating from circa 1880–1900, stemming from the work of the Reverend A.M. Bennett (died 1880) of St Peter's, the mother church of Bournemouth. The predecessor church of St Ambrose on Alumhurst Road, designed by Adams & Horner, was opened in 1880 and enlarged in 1884. The new site was given in 1894 by the Cooper-Dean family, prominent landowners and benefactors to Bournemouth. The church opened in 1900, and the former church became the parish hall, now a day centre. The parish of St Ambrose was formed in 1922.

The architect C. Hodgson Fowler (1840–1910) was a pupil of Sir George Gilbert Scott and became Diocesan architect to York and Durham, as well as cathedral architect at Lincoln (1890) and Rochester (1898). The north aisle was damaged in an arson attack on 20 November 2006, and its roof was entirely rebuilt.