Church of St Philip and St James with boundary wall and gates

Church of St Philip and St James with Boundary Wall and Gates

An Anglican parish church built between 1879 and 1882, designed by John Middleton in the Gothic Revival and Decorated style, with a tower added in 1903 designed by Prothero and Phillott. The church is constructed in rusticated, coursed limestone rubble with ashlar and red sandstone dressings, with a plain tile roof and a copper-covered tower roof. The boundary walls are built in coursed limestone rubble with wrought-iron gates.

The church has a six-bay aisled nave with clerestory and a tower positioned in the south-west corner. The chancel extends to the east with three bays, a south chapel, and a vestry to the north.

The west end features three bays. The central gable-end bay contains a pair of plank doors with ornate hinges within a pointed arch surround of three orders supported by red sandstone columns, all beneath a hoodmould. Above are a pair of triple-light Decorated-style windows flanking a statue niche, set under a small rose window. An offset buttress stands to the left with the end of the north aisle containing a pointed-arch window. To the right is the square 1903 tower, featuring three lancet windows to its first stage, an arcade of three large pointed-arched windows (the central one blind) supported by colonnettes to the second stage, and paired pointed-arched belfry windows with three orders of arches on red sandstone columns to the third stage. The same arrangement appears on the east elevation. The tower entrance is on the south side, with a stair turret attached to the south-east corner. The tower has a saddleback roof surmounted by a flèche.

The north and south elevations have aisle bays divided by offset buttresses, each containing a pointed two-light window except the north-west bay, which has a three-light window. The south-east bay contains a small pointed cusped-arch plank door. The clerestory features pairs of two-light windows. The south chapel has a four-light window, while the vestry displays a pair of two-light windows under a small rose window. The east elevation features a five-light chancel window, a pair of two-light pointed-arch windows for the south chapel, and a plank door with cusped arch above and wrought-iron light fitting for the vestry, along with single and two-light pointed-arch windows.

Internally, the church is decorated with polychromatic stonework. The nave arcades have banded clustered columns with roll-moulded capitals and pointed arches with four orders of roll-moulding, topped by a continuous hoodmould. A continuous cill band runs beneath the clerestory, with corbelled columns supporting gilded principal trusses that form part of a barrel-vaulted ceiling. Some pews in the south and north aisles have been repositioned to create an enclosed kitchen area in the west end of the south aisle and a carpeted crèche space in the east end of the north aisle.

The pointed chancel arch stands on black-marble columns and consists of two orders of arches with decorative carving topped by an ornate carved hoodmould. The chancel floor is covered in Minton tiles, with a vaulted ceiling supported by carved corbels. The chancel window features a blue and white banded pointed arch supported by slender black marble columns. The left chancel wall contains a piscina topped by a pointed arch with tracery detailing, and attached sedilia with three cusped trefoil arches supported by black marble columns. The walls display polychromatic painted bands. Two sets of double arches in the north and south sides of the chancel, each containing two orders of arches with carved decoration supported by red-stone column clusters, are present; the north arches incorporate the church organ with the vestry beyond, which includes a 20th-century timber staircase and mezzanine floor. The south arcade opens to a chapel. The church crypt, accessed externally via a door in the west end, includes a columbarium for funerary urns.

Notable fixtures and fittings include stained glass windows predominantly by Heaton, Butler and Bayne (1882-1900). The west window of the south chapel by Michael O'Connor (1864) was the east window of the earlier church. The north and south chancel windows are by C E Kempe (1881). The north aisle windows include work by Hardman (circa 1881), Christopher Webb (1927), and Richard Webb (1991). The Middleton Memorial window in the north aisle is by John Henry Middleton, son of the architect (1888). The oak pews were made by Middleton's practice with elaborate carvings executed by C F Yean and H H Martyn & Co. Five-light chandeliers suspended from the ceilings likely formed part of the original design. The carved stone reredos at the end of the north aisle came from the Church of St James, Suffolk Square. The stone pulpit, added in 1885, is intricately carved with foliate decorative figures depicting saints within niches and tracery detailing. The nave and chancel are separated by an ornate wrought-iron screen designed by Prothero (1902), featuring foliate and tracery decoration with gilded detailing on a carved red marble plinth and topped by a wrought-iron Rood cross. The canopied stone chancel reredos at the east end was designed by Prothero and carved by H H Martyn (1889). The south chapel contains a wooden war memorial reredos crafted by L W Barnard with a painted panel by J Eadie Reid (1923). Most monuments in the church date to the 1840s and came from the earlier church; several are by George Lewis of Cheltenham.

The boundary wall has a chamfered plinth and copings, running approximately 26 metres along Grafton Road and 10 metres along Gratton Road, with three pedestrian entrances. The tower porch entrance features a set of wrought-iron double gates with bars and dog bars, central scroll decoration, and ornate hinge posts surmounted by scroll decoration.