Church of St Simon

Church of St Simon

This church was built between 1905 and 1957, with the main structure completed by 1907 and the west end finished in 1957. The architect was Harbottle Reed, and the builders were Messrs Pethick Bros of Plymouth. Woodcarving, and possibly stone carving, was undertaken by James B Hunt of Plymouth.

The exterior is constructed of random-coursed ashlar of local limestone with Bath stone dressings, and the roofs are slate. The interior is clad in purple-grey Dulverton stone, with Bath stone piers.

The church stands on a west-east alignment with a rectangular footprint varied by a porch at the centre of the north elevation and by a projecting east end and south-east corner containing the church's functional areas and a stair. The site slopes upwards from the south, creating room for a lower-ground floor in this area.

The design responds dramatically to the sloping site, with strong massing at the east end rising from the lower-ground storey and with the striking verticality of the south, street-facing elevation punctuated by slanting offset buttresses. The east window is flanked by square, crenellated stair towers and sits within a gable surmounted by a cross finial. The pointed tripartite window features flamboyant tracery with an Art Nouveau flavour, and the mullions are enriched with unusual offset crocketed crops. The south-east corner is complex, composed of the steep slope of the vestry and sacristy between the chancel and south aisle, with the chancel parapet stepped above it, the flat-roofed projection of lower-level vestries to the south-east, and a semi-circular stair tower projecting southwards at the junction with the aisle. An east gable of the south aisle houses a ventilation shaft for the heating system. Four large windows on the south elevation follow varying flamboyant patterns with pointed segmental-arched heads formed by relieving arches spanning the bays between buttresses. The easternmost bay contains two much smaller windows with tulip-form tracery and crocketed hoodmoulds above. Doorways and adjoining windows in the two eastern bays are square-headed. The north elevation, with ground rising steeply close behind it, follows the same pattern but includes a porch to the east with a louvred timber belfry and pitched roof. The west front, constructed in 1956 of local limestone salvaged from buildings destroyed in the Blitz with window and door surrounds of composite material, is relatively traditional in approach and does not match the style of the rest of the church. The gable ends of the nave and aisles are presented in a single plane separated by short offset buttresses with stone cross finials; each gable has a large pointed window with Perpendicular tracery. At the centre stands a pointed doorway with foliate carving and blank panels. A tablet placed low in the south wall commemorates the commencement of building by Randall Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, on 8 November 1905.

The double-aisled interior is lofty with wagon roofs. The nave floor is of brick-shaped tiles with wood-parquet sections for chairs, now removed. The sanctuary floor is black and white chequered marble. The austere, open space with its facing of purple-grey Dulverton stone is offset by the arcades and dressings of richly carved Bath stone. The piers have mouldings of a traditional Devon type and elaborately carved crenellated capitals in which leaves, flowers and fruit are arranged around plaques in the form of pomegranates bearing initials, presumably those of donors to the church; some plaques remain uncarved. Shafts in the spandrels between the arches provide carved corbels supporting the roof trusses, with paired shafts marking the transition between nave and chancel; angel heads form the lower corbels. The capitals at this point are enriched with Biblical text. The pointed arches of the screens separating the chancel from the north and south chapels are contained within segmental arches with blank plate tracery to the spandrels; the piers between these arches are supported on carved angel corbels, one to the north bearing a cartouche with the words 'The highest'. Within the chancel is an ogee-headed piscina with carved spandrels, corbelled base, and crenellation. Beside it stands a plain segmental-arched sedilia niche, similar to niches beneath the aisle windows which hold radiators.

The chancel contains oak choir stalls designed by Reed and carved by J B Hunt, inscribed 1923 but not completed until 1934, featuring carved angel figures to the ends and tracery panels. The communion rails are also carved with tracery panels. The carved oak lectern, designed by Reed and executed by Hunt, is a memorial to James Yonge, one of the founders of the new building and a churchwarden and lay reader. It takes the form of a demi-octagon with deep radial buttresses on a stone and tiled plinth, with saints to either side of the central angel surmounting the whole: St Cyprian, representing Yonge's profession as a lawyer, and St Ambrose, representing his civic life. An ornate carved wood reredos, which may also be by Reed and Hunt, is set with figurative alabaster panels. The sanctuary is lined with wooden panels having richly carved borders; some disjunction in the flow of the inscriptions these bear suggests they have been reused from elsewhere. The north and south panels serve as a war memorial. Built into the chancel step is a hexagonal pulpit inscribed 1908, constructed of coloured marbles. An octagonal stone font with open trefoil panels has a pointed, crocketed oak cover. The south chapel contains the organ, originally built by Renatus Harris in 1707 for St Peter Mancroft Church, Norwich, rebuilt and enlarged by John Pike England in 1794 and again by Hedgeland in 1866; the organ was brought to St Simon's in 1912. In the north chapel stands a wooden reredos with an annunciation scene in carved and gilded panels. The east window of the north chapel, showing the Virgin and Child with the Magi, is by Kempe & Co, as is stained glass depicting individual saints in the south aisle.

The south-eastern section of the building, reached by a passage behind the organ, contains the functional areas of the church on two levels connected by a stone spiral stair lit by horizontally divided ogee-headed windows with internal trefoils and crenellated transoms. On the upper floor are the principal vestry and sacristy with heavy panelled oak doors; on the lower floor are the choir and clergy vestries, WCs, and a former stoke hole and blowing room.

A brick church hall stands to the north of the church on higher ground. Constructed in 1901 with later eastern extensions, the building has steeply pitched roofs with half-timbering to the gables and brick buttresses. The original wagon-roofed hall has a stage and balustraded gallery, now blocked off.