Church Of The Holy Innocents

Church of the Holy Innocents

A parish church built in 1849–51 by Henry Woodyer for Thomas Gambier-Parry, with the vestry enlarged in 1863 for the same patron. The church is constructed of roughly-coursed, squared lias with Bath stone dressings and a tiled roof, and is designed in the Decorated Gothic style.

The building comprises a western tower, a five-bay aisled nave, a south porch with a room over, a chancel, a two-bay chapel to the south, and a vestry to the north.

The south facade features a three-stage tower with a four-stage plinth and square-set corner buttresses. At its foot is a boarded door set in a shouldered arch within a slight projection topped with a lean-to stone roof, with lancets lighting the stairs. A string course marks the first stage, above which is a lancet window under a relieving arch spanning the facade. Gabled offsets to the buttresses feature blind tracery and ballflower decoration. A decorative band runs across the top of the second stage, which contains two two-light windows with wooden louvres between clasping projecting corners and corbelled eaves. An octagonal broach spire rises above, with a central two-light window in a tall dormer, a crocketed gable, and corner pinnacles. The corner pinnacles of the tower are embellished with ballflower decoration; a flying buttress springs from below an arch across the corner, with a further pinnacle rising above. The spire arises are roll-moulded with leaf decoration on adjoining surfaces, lucarnes near the top, and a floriate apex topped with an iron weathervane.

The south aisle has a simple plinth and square-set buttresses to each bay. Its two-light windows feature hoodmoulds extended as stringcourses at springing level and moulded stone eaves. The porch, in the second bay, has diagonal corner buttresses and a quarter-octagon stair turret to its rear left return. Its arched doorway, reached by two stone steps, has double wooden screen doors. Above is a carved panel with pierced tracery, flanked by lancets, all beneath a relieving arch with a parapet gable and a floriate cross on a cross-gablet apex. The clerestorey consists of five quatrefoils with blind tracery below on each side and moulded eaves. At the east end is a two-light oak dormer with crocketed pinnacles and decorative barge boards. Parapet gables with a double-block apex terminate the east end.

The chapel projects to the east, with a boarded door with trefoil head on its left return, reached by four stone steps. It has a square-set buttress to its left end and an angled buttress to the right, with a two-stage plinth and a string course at sill level. Two lancet windows rise above, with moulded eaves, parapet gables, and cross-gablet apices.

The chancel is set back to the right with a three-stage plinth, a square-set corner buttress, and a panelled gable to the top. Its six-light window has ogee heads with a line of quatrefoils above under a wavy hoodmould, and is crowned by a parapet gable with a floriate cross to the apex. The east end has a two-light window to the chapel and a three-light window to the chancel, both with hoodmoulds; the chancel window has a trefoil within a circle above.

The north vestry is set back from the chancel with a plain plinth, low eaves, two lancet windows, and a boarded door up two stone steps, with a further lancet and buttress. A three-light window, flanked by angled corner buttresses, occupies one end. The hipped roof rises to a higher centre with a semi-octagonal form against the chancel, which rises to a spirelet forming a stair turret. A triangular dormer with wooden tracery, an original parapet gable with chimney to the apex, and a further parapet gable to the right complete this elevation. The north face has a quatrefoil only to the chancel. The vestry features diagonal corner buttresses with two square-set buttresses between, and three-light windows in the end bays only. A boarded door descends stone steps to a boiler room below. A rose window within a gable rises above, with a hipped roof below. The nave and tower on the north side echo the south side, but the tower has no door or relieving arch, and the porch is replaced by a double boarded door up one stone step, with four blind quatrefoils above under a wavy hoodmould.

The interior features a nave floor of Minton tiles with brass insets. Clustered columns with leaf capitals support the arcades, with a string course below the clerestorey windows. Leaf corbels carry moulded ribs supporting scissor-braced trusses with two pairs of purlins and no ridge piece; slight windbraces and exposed rafters with chamfered and painted arrises complete the roof structure. A tall tower arch without capitals marks the west end, with the lowest stage vaulted. A marble-columned chancel arch with floriate capitals carries a wooden screen with two-light doors on each side of a moulded beam with a crossover. Brass candlesticks sit on a dado rail. Above is a painting of the Last Judgement with raised and gilt haloes. The eastern bay of the nave roof is painted, and dormers were added to light wall paintings.

The south aisle features a painted green dado with decorative painting and texts on a stone-coloured ground above. An ornate iron screen closes the chapel at the east end, with an iron canopy over the south door. The north aisle has a green dado with painted hangings above depicting a procession of figures under the eaves, and a stone grille screens the organ chamber.

The chancel floor is more ornate, with brass grilles to part of the east end, and the walls are fully painted. A corbelled balcony for the organ, supported on a ballflower-decorated arch, occupies the north side. An aumbry with an ogee head, leaf crockets and finial is set into the north wall. To the south, an arch opening into the chapel features a decorative wrought-iron screen with angel corbels. The sedilia, on the south side, comprise marble columns with ogee heads and pierced tracery above. An ornately carved reredos, with three panels on each side of a central section arranged in two tiers with crocketed pinnacles, dominates the east wall. Above it is a panelled painted boarded barrel vault with angels and shields on the wallplate.

The chapel walls are painted with a boarded ceiling above the rafters. A pierced-tracery niche on the south side contains a bust of Isabella, who died in 1848 as the first wife of Thomas Gambier-Parry.

An octagonal carved stone font stands on a stem with open arches around, supported on painted alabaster colonettes, raised on two stone steps from a platform. Above it rises a three-stage wooden canopy. An octagonal stone pulpit on open arcading, with leaf carving to the sides and stone steps, carries a brass handrail added in 1905. Original brass candelabra populate the aisles and chapel, with seven brass candle standards in the pews, and large cast-iron radiator covers, all by Hardman.

The stained glass programme includes windows by Wailes to the north aisle, by Hardman (to designs by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin) to the south aisle, by O'Connor to the west and chapel, and by Clayton and Bell to the east window (1859). Wall paintings in spirit fresco by Thomas Gambier-Parry cover the chancel arch (begun 1859) and the north aisle (1870–80). The organ was used for practice by Sir Hubert Parry. The architect Harold Goodhart-Rendel regarded the church as the "fulfilment of the Pugin ideal".