Church Of St Stanislaus And St Lawrence

Church of St Stanislaus and St Lawrence, Duke Street

Built in 1877-8 and designed by Burder and Baker, this is a substantial late 19th-century Anglican church, now serving as a Polish church since about 1980.

The building is constructed of red brick in English bond with freestone dressings and bands, beneath red tiled roofs (the narthex having a cement tiled roof). The architectural style throughout derives from the 13th century.

The plan consists of a clerestoried nave and square-ended chancel treated as one unified space, with narrow lean-to aisles flanking the nave. Additional elements include a north-east vestry and organ chamber, a south-east chapel, porches to the south-west, north-west and south-east, a north-east tower, and a baptistry at the west end.

Externally, lancet windows feature throughout, except at the west end which has three pairs of tall two-light Geometrical windows. The nave and chancel are tall and of equal height, flanked by low lean-to passage aisles. The south-east chapel rises tall and contrasts markedly with the adjoining south aisle. At the junction of nave and chancel on the north elevation stands a short four-stage tower with an entrance and a tall two-light window above. The tower's square lower sections turn octagonal in the short belfry stage with corner projections rising to pinnacles above the base of the short spire. The buttresses of the nave terminate in gables, continuing internally across the aisle roofs, a strategy reflected in the aisle buttresses which also terminate in gables.

The interior is characterised by the great width and height of the chancel and four-bay nave, with no chancel arch separating them. At the east end, the focus is two tiers of plain triple lancets. The aisles are mere passages cut through the internal buttresses. The moulded arches of the nave are of bare brick. Exceptions are the freestone bases, capitals and bands between the piers, which add significant horizontal emphasis at low level. Freestone also appears at high level in the wall-shafts to the principal rafters and in capitals at the clerestory window springings. Below the wall-plate sits a terracotta cornice and frieze with flower decoration. Unusually, the panelled roof has no demarcation or change in construction between nave and chancel. Each of the seven bays is separated by a cusped principal rafter, the lowest cusp peak created by a hammer-beam. The roof is of very light construction, enhanced by horizontal and vertical iron ties for stability. The Lady Chapel also features a hammer-beam roof. On either side of the chancel are very tall two-bay arcades with octagonal piers. The chancel is steeply stepped up and floored with encaustic tiles. At the west end a triple arcade opens centrally to the baptistry in the west narthex.

The principal fixtures include wrought-iron screens bounding the choir on north and south sides—notably coved and crested—and another wrought-iron screen on top of a low stone wall at the chancel entrance. The lectern and altar rails are also good wrought-iron pieces. The three-bay timber reredos features painted figures of the ascending Christ flanked by angels, probably later than the original church. The hanging rood figures are dated 1933. Three rows of stalls with simple bands of arcading form the major feature in the chancel.

The church was built to serve the Anglican population of this area of Northampton. Almost nothing is currently known of the architects, though Burder was presumably Alfred W N Burder, whose address was listed as 14 York Chambers, London in 1879. This is the only work by Burder and Baker mentioned in all of the Pevsner Architectural Guides to England. Pevsner admired it as "notably good and impressive", seeing the building in the style of J L Pearson, which it indeed follows whilst drawing upon other strands of mid-Victorian church architecture. Most notably, it employs passage aisles and internal buttressing recently used to splendid effect at G F Bodley's church of St Augustine, Pendlebury, Lancashire (1870-4). The use of ordinary brick to create a cheap but imposing church had been pioneered by Pearson at St Peter, Vauxhall, London (1863-4) and by James Brooks at various inner London churches in the 1860s.