Church of St Mark, boundary walls and gatepiers

Church of St Mark, Boundary Walls and Gatepiers

An Anglican parish church for New Swindon, built between 1843 and 1845 to the design of (Sir) George Gilbert Scott, RA (1811-1878) and William Bonython Moffatt (1812-1887). The building was altered and extended in 1897 by Temple Moore (1856-1920).

The church is constructed in rock-faced snecked Swindon sandstone with Bath stone dressings, and has 20th-century grey tile roofs. It comprises a nave and north and south aisles with a south porch, north vestry, south chapel, and chancel. The tower adjoins the north aisle opposite the south chapel.

The exterior displays a curvilinear Decorated style. The six-bay nave has aisles with clerestory windows featuring two pointed segmental-headed lights between flat gabled buttresses with cusping, topped with fleuron-decorated hollow moulding. The aisles themselves have two-light pointed-arched windows of varying tracery between buttresses with offsets. The gabled south porch is in 14th-century style, with paired shafts and triple keeling, a drip mould with label stops, and gabled buttresses to either side. The porch roof is arch-braced with collar rafters. The double doors have elaborate ledging and bracing, with wrought-iron strap hinges and bolts.

The south aisle chapel comprises three bays divided by gabled buttresses with cusping. Its western bay contains a door in a Caernarvon-arched moulded opening, while the bays feature two-light pointed-arched windows with elaborate tracery. At the east end of the chancel stands a three-light window with elaborate cusped Decorated tracery, under a drip mould with label stops and continuous string. The corner buttresses here are gabled with cusping. To the left is the east window in the south chapel, square-headed with three lights and cusping. To the right stands the flat-roofed north vestry, two storeys high, with a four-light mullioned window to the lower floor and a two-light pointed window above. The north side of the vestry has a small pointed-arched doorway with drip mould and label stops, a slit window alongside, a high pointed-arched window with matching mould and label stops lighting the former organ bay, and grotesque rainwater heads.

The four-stage tower adjoins the aisle towards the western end, with angle buttresses featuring offsets that rise through all four stages, a corner stair turret, and two-light louvred bell openings with drip moulds and label stops. The tower carries a crocketed spire with base lucarnes and a north door matching the west door of the nave. The west end features a large five-light pointed-arched window with cusped tracery under a drip mould with label stop, and a pointed-arched west doorway with mouldings in three orders under a drip mould with label stop; this opening is now glazed.

Interior

The south porch gives access to an inner porch created from a west-end hall conversion incorporating the western two bays of the nave and aisles. This inner porch has 1980s light oak timber fittings. Doors lead into the south aisle and ahead to the church hall. The church interior is lined in Bath stone ashlar with concrete floors (timber beneath pews).

The four-bay nave arcades have two chamfered orders and continuous moulding with label stops, carried on quatrefoil piers. An open hammer-beam roof with scissor bracing springs from carved corbels. The three-bay chancel features a moulded arcade of keeled columns with circular abaci, while the chancel arch has clustered octagonal columns with foliate carved capitals. The wagon roof comprises four bays on coved wall plates with corbel brackets. The high altar remains in situ, with an additional recent forward altar table of limestone set at the western end of the chancel. The chancel ceiling is timber, rising from corbels with a cornice, and the floor is paved in black and white marble.

The Lady Chapel has a flat, panelled and painted timber ceiling with angel bosses, and a floor of timber parquet with black and white marble to the dais. The westernmost two bays are divided from the nave at ground-floor level to create an organ loft above a single-storey church hall. The dividing wall has two deep rectangular recesses. The easternmost bay of the north aisle is enclosed, formerly housing the organ, with a carved glazed timber screen dividing it from the north aisle. The pews have chamfered bench ends.

The octagonal font features carved quatrefoil panels and a suspended oak cover spire. The octagonal stone pulpit shares steps to a rood door beneath a canopy with cusping. The suspended rood dates from 1928, designed by T H Lyon and carved by Herbert Read of Exeter. A tabernacle war memorial contains a carved figure of St George in a round-arched niche with cornice.

Stained glass includes a west window dating from 1843-1845. The east window in the south chapel, installed in 1897 and made by Charles Eamer Kempe, depicts Mary and the Christ Child. Another window in the north aisle is also by Kempe. The east window, installed after the Second World War, shows Christ in a mandorla flanked by the Evangelists.

Boundary Walls and Gatepiers

The churchyard is bounded to the south along the roadside by a boundary wall with two vehicular openings. Paired gatepiers mark the eastern entrance; these are square in section with gabled copings and fleur-de-lys finials. The wall is constructed of rough-faced Swindon stone with regular buttresses along its length featuring offsets, and has shaped coping at the top. Towards the western end is a later vehicular access where the walls have been breached and extended inwards to create an angled opening. At the western end the wall terminates in a pier with sloped coping.