Emmanuel Church

Emmanuel Church, Cheltenham

Church built in 1936-7, designed by architect Herbert T. Rainger, A.R.I.B.A of the practice Rainger & Rogers. The building is constructed in brick faced with Bath stone ('St. Aldhelm Box Ground') with a pantiled roof.

The plan follows a basilican style with a five-bay nave, a west baptistery, and symmetrical porches. The chancel is flanked by a north organ chamber and a south chapel (St. Oswald's Chapel). A meeting room, kitchen, toilet facilities, and assembly area are attached to the south side, dating from the late 1970s.

The west gable end features ramped coping to stepped kneelers and a central bellcote surmounted by a cross. The bellcote has two tiers of gableted walls; the upper tier is pierced by a round-arched opening. Buttresses extend downwards from impost level to articulate the central bay of the façade. The ground floor is moderne in its massing, with a central baptistery window flanked by projecting porches with panelled oak doors and small side lights.

The nave walls are articulated by unornamented pilasters flanking recessed bays, each with a continuous stepped cornice and an arched window with lead glazing and a shouldered reveal. The chancel has a pitched roof at a lower level than the nave. The chancel east end has a ramped gable on stepped kneelers with a recessed cross towards the top of the elevation.

The interior is dominated by a barrel-vaulted nave, with a shallow west-end baptistery entered by an arcade of three unmoulded arches. The baptistery contains a stone Gothic Revival font from the earlier church. The nave roof has ornamental partitioning, as do the ceilings either side of the barrel vault. Windows throughout the nave and chancel have unusual supports to the arched top in the form of a splayed wedge which dies into the window's return. The nave has parquet flooring and accommodates 490 people in rush-bottomed chairs. All doors are oak panelled.

The chancel is dominated by two very large semi-circular arches providing access to the organ chamber and St. Oswald's Chapel. Above these arches is a clerestory with five deep-set splayed lights. The chancel has oak choir and clergy panelled stalls with simply-carved angels on the returns. The east end of the chancel contains a large blind arched recess housing an elaborate wooden-carved Gothic Revival reredos from the earlier church.

Vestries—including a clergy vestry and separate vestries for boys, men, and ladies—are entirely separate from the church and connected to the west end of the nave by a corridor.

The district of Emmanuel dates back before 1887 and was formerly part of St. Luke's Parish. The church's predecessor was an iron church built in Naunton Terrace, Cheltenham, which was rebuilt by the time it burnt down in 1916. Designs for a new church were first prepared in 1919 as a stone building in Gothic style, but this scheme was abandoned as too expensive, and more economical plans were drawn up. Many fittings from the old church were reused in the 1936-7 building, including the reredos, chancel hangings, altar rail, panelled organ front, and font.

Emmanuel Church is a simply-rendered but highly competent example of inter-war church architecture, mixing moderne and various historical traditions.