Description

POOLE

SZ0291 LONGFLEET ROAD, Longfleet
958-1/14/241 (South side)
Church of St Mary

II

Church. 1830-33. By Edward Blore. Chancel added 1863 by GE
Street. W end with S porch, tower and spire added 1883 by GR
Crickmay & Son of Weymouth. Chancel lengthened and vestries
added 1893, probably by same architects. Nave rebuilt 1914-15
with aisles and transepts by Herbert Kendell of Poole. N
transept converted to parish room and other alterations made
late C20. Coursed squared, rock-faced Purbeck stone with Bath
stone dressings and plain-tile roofs.
PLAN: chancel with vestries to N, N & S transepts, aisled
nave, SW porch and NW tower with spire. First and Second
Pointed styles.
EXTERIOR: chancel has 3 bays and 3-light E window with
Geometrical tracery including large and small trefoils to head
and cinquefoiled head to central light, and 2-light windows to
S, that to centre with quatrefoil in vesica piscis to head,
those either side with cusped Y-tracery, quatrefoil to head
and trefoils above outer lights; all have hoodmoulds.
Range of vestries to N side of chancel with twin gabled roofs
chamfered doorway to right, small paired and single cusped
1-light windows with hoodmoulding continued as string course.
Transepts have similar arrangement of 2-light window either
side of central offset buttress to gable end walls, with
cusped Y-tracery and hoodmoulds, and lancet windows to sides
with hoodmoulds and label stops. S transept has in addition a
chamfered side doorway with hoodmould and label stops, and
octagonal stone stack for basement boiler room.
Nave has clerestorey with 3 bays of 3-light windows with
cusped intersecting tracery. Aisles have paired lancet
windows. S aisle has porch to westernmost bay which has
doorway, now blocked, with 2 orders of shafts, double
keel-moulded head, tympanum with blank circle and lintel
moulding and hoodmould; flanking buttresses to front and group
of 3 small cusped 1-light windows to S side with a single
hoodmould continued as string course.
Nave has 3-light W window with Geometrical tracery of large
cinquefoiled circle to head, quatrefoiled circles above outer
lights and hoodmould continued as string course. A group of 4
cusped 1-light windows below lighting baptistery with single
hoodmould continued as string course and offset buttress to
right side of front.
NW tower to left of W end of nave is approx 35m high with
spire and has 4 stages, offset angle buttresses, string
courses and high chamfered plinth. Porch doorway to N side has
3 orders of shafts, triple keel-moulded head, tympanum with
blank quatrefoil and hoodmould with carved head of King to
left label and bishop to right label stop. Diagonally
positioned stair turret doorway between NW angle buttresses
has Caernarvon-arched head and stone gablet with carved dragon
kneelers to coping and trefoil to apex. 3 stepped lancet
windows to W side lighting stair with string course forming
continuous stepped hoodmould. Groups of 3 cusped 1-light
windows to W side of next stage. Clock faces to W and N sides
of 3rd stage framed by gabled hoodmoulds continued as string
courses. Pairs of tall bell-chamber windows to top stage with
trefoil-headed lights, quatrefoils to heads and double
hoodmoulds with label stops. Corbel table and moulded cornice
to top of tower and octagonal pinnacles to angles to base of
broaches which have smaller diagonal pinnacles to top of
broaches at same level of spires single tier of lucarnes to
cardinal directions.
Church has chamfered plinths, string courses at cill level of
windows and stone-coped gables with kneelers, offset
buttresses flanking E end and between bays.
INTERIOR: nave has 3-bay arcades with double-chamfered arches
dying into square chamfered piers. Boarded waggon roof resting
on wall shafts. Chancel has 2-seat sedilia with moulded
trefoiled heads resting on central shaft with foliage capital.
Carved wood reredos to High Altar of 1894. Pulpit of carved
wood with figures of Saints and Prophets.
STAINED GLASS: a variety of stained-glass windows including 4
small windows to baptistery at W end showing 4 Evangelists
erected 1893 by Cakebread and Robey, fine W window above of
1920 by Clayton and Bell depicting Christ in Judgement, a
First World War memorial and a window in S transept described
by Canon Basil Clarke as "a comic window (by, we imagine,
Bacon) in the S transept of a soldier waking up to find
himself in Heaven" and a good E window. Other stained-glass
windows in transepts.
In spite of a surprisingly complicated development, the church
is an effective composition, whose major accent, the NW tower
and spire, is one of Poole's most important landmarks.
(Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Newman J: Dorset: London:
1972-: 319; Clarke, Canon B: Mss Notes: 1957-1959; Salisbury
Diocesan Gazette: 1893-: 212; Post Office Directory:
Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset: 1875-; Kelly's Directory:
Dorset: 1911-1920).

Listing NGR: SZ0210191452

This List entry has been amended to add sources for War Memorials Online and the War Memorials Register. These sources were not used in the compilation of this List entry but are added here as a guide for further reading, 30 October 2017.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• St Mary's Church, Longfleet at Wikipedia
• St Mary's Church, Longfleet official website
• Wikidata Q7594371

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.

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