Description

BALHAM HIGH ROAD SW12
1.
5033
Church of St Mary
TQ 2873 15/7
II
2.
Built about 1806 as a proprietory chapel, enlarged 1824 by James Arding and Son
and the chancel by Arthur Cawston added after 1881. The liturgical west front by
W Newton Dunn circa 1904 now governs the exterior. It is in modified "Wrenaissance"
style, of hale gault bricks with rich stone dressings, the rest of the exterior
being of yellow stocks with the roof of slate.
The west front comprises a pedimented temple front between towers, the whole reading
as a rusticated podium and an upper stage, each articulated by a pilaster order:
Ionic (and blocked) below, Corinthian above. At the podium stage the mouth of the
temple is screened by the elliptical wall of the baptistery which is pierced with
tall round-arched windows. The lines of the baptistery pilasters continue as
battreses to the drum stage of the hemispherical dome.
The great lunette window framed by the upper stage of the temple front reads as a
respond to this dome.
The podium stage of each flanking tower is pierced by double doors within a
surround of order and entablature. The lines of this surround continue into the
upper stage where a segmental-pedimented aedicule frames the tall round-arched window
this motif being repeated on the return.
Eaon tower has a richly carved attic with squat obelisk finials at the angles.
The north-west tower supports a complex spire in English Baroque manner comprising
clock stage, 2 octagonal stages and a finial feature with reverse-scroll buttresses.
The north and south elevations of the nave and north and south transepts are pierced
by 2 tiers of windows, the lower with gauged cambered arches, the upper with gauged
round-headed arches.

Listing NGR: TQ2836273128

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26496541

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)