Details
TQ3182SW
635-1/73/387
ISLINGTON,
EXMOUTH MARKET (South side),
Church of our most Holy Redeemer, Clergy House, campanile & parish hall
(Formerly Listed as:
EXMOUTH MARKET (South side)
Church of the Holy Redeemer)
29/12/50
GV II*
Church with attached clergy house, campanile, and parish hall.
1887-1888, by John Dando Sedding completed by Henry Wilson
1892-1895. Clergy House, parish hall, campanile, and Lady
Chapel 1894-1906. Chapel of All Souls, 1921 by Wilson.
Sculptural carving to interior by F W Pomeroy, sculptor. Buff
stock brick set in English bond with finely cut rubbed red
brick and stone bands and dressings, and red-tile dressings;
various Welsh-slate roofs: gabled roof with projecting eaves
to church, half-hipped roof to clergy house, gable facing to
parish hall and hipped roof with projecting eaves to
campanile. Free cross-plan with narrow side aisles and
diminutive transepts; interior lengthened by Wilson with Lady
Chapel extending eastward behind Baldacchino. Pure Italian
Renaissance style. Symmetrical front facade to church with
round-arched doorway set into centre of solid brick wall at
ground level: doorway with wooden panelled double doors with
rectangular overlights flanked by pairs of stone pilasters
(with red brick panels) carrying entablature and surmounted by
moulded-stone extrados to finely-cut rubbed red-brick tympanum
with brick-panelled intrados. Stone cornice at midpoint up
front elevation with inscribed freize in giant letters
reading: 'CHRISTO LIBERATOR'. Red brick and stone banding to
1st stage: wheel window to centre with intricate curved and
radial leaded glazing bars and moulded stone surround. Giant
pediment above with wide projecting bracketed eaves; finely
cut low-relief carving to tympanum. Continuation of banded
decoration (in brick only) to upper stage of left-hand return
wall with same wheel window as front; right-hand return wall
obscured by campanile but has same detailing. Flanking front
facade on left is parish hall, on the right the clergy house
with its projecting campanile. Subtle Italian Romanesque style
to subsidiary buildings. Parish hall breaks forward slightly:
2 storeys; 1-window range (5 lights with modillions) set in
brick recess to centre. Main entrance to small covered porch
to right-hand return wall; secondary 1-storey entrance to far
left front facade, both with round-arched heads. Features
throughout include finely detailed tile extradoses, imposts,
decorative tympanum and banding; stone coping above left
entrance. Clergy house breaks forward slightly: 4 storeys;
2-window range plus 1-window range to left-hand return wall.
Round-arched entrance to return. Sashes (6/6, 4/4, 2/2) with
round-arched heads with fine tile extradoses, stone imposts
and sill bands; windows to ground and 4th floors with flat
arches. Cornice, tile coping to brick parapet. Campanile
breaks well-forward to southwest corner: almost square in
plan, partially obscured by other buildings; 5 stages; various
round-arched coupled openings (except 1st stage single opening
only) with sashes to ground, 1st, 2nd and 3rd stages; other
stages open; all with finely-cut tiled or brick extradoses,
stone imposts and sill bands. INTERIOR: of church: Renaissance
style. Colonnades of lavish, giant Corinthian-columns with
panelled pedestals carrying unbroken entablature and
supporting four groined vaults. Column capitals carved by
sculptor F W Pomeroy. Free-standing Baldacchino high altar on
pattern of Sto. Spirito in Florence in east end; Sedding's
plans for frescoed walls never carried out and are now plain,
Wilson responsible for most of existing interior furnishings
such as font, 1909, floors, some of marble. Lady Chapel with
details by Wilson and Sedding's son. All Soul's Chapel:
reredos, presented by Wilson, cast of that in the chapel at
Welbeck Abbey (1906). Glass is plain. Stations of Cross by
Martin Travers studio and organ from Chapel Royal at Windsor
Castle installed in 1889. Attached iron railings to front
elevation.
History: The church was consecrated in 1888 but never
completed as designed in 1887. Sedding died very young in
1891, and the building was completed by Sedding's assistant
Henry Wilson. He submitted plans in 1892 which included
extending the building eastward behind the Baldacchino; this
was done in 1894-1895. An appeal was established in 1901 to
pay for the other buildings and they were completed in 1906.
This church is of outstanding importance as an example of the
late C19 reaction against High Victorian Gothic. Sedding
accomplished this by using the pure Italian Renaissance style.
In doing so, he not only created a 'monument to the
Aestheticism of the late Victorian Anglo-Catholics', but made
the church look Roman Catholic. Wilson's work to the church is
particularly fine; and his interesting subsidiary buildings
(parish-hall, clergy-house, and especially the campanile)
flanking the front facade are extremely clever and
idiosyncratic. This complex was built in the heart of a
significant Italian community. These buildings form a
remarkable group.
(Buildings of England: Pevsner, N: London: London: 1951-:
FINSBURY 114; The Faber Guide to Victorian Churches: London:
1989-: 77; Stamp, G and Amery, C: Victorian Buildings of
London 1837-1887: An Illustrated Guide: London: 1982-:
153-154).
Listing NGR: TQ3126482428
