Description

LYMINGTON

693/7/291 RAMLEY ROAD
28-OCT-74 PENNINGTON
(Southwest side)
CHURCH OF ST MARK

II
Parish church. 1859, by C.E. Giles, with choir vestry added 1933; memorial chapel enlarged 1948.

MATERIALS: red brick with yellow brick decoration; Bath stone dressings. Slate roofs.

PLAN: Oriented north-south, with liturgical east to the south. Liturgical points, rather than compass points, are used here. Nave with vestry and sacristy to north-east, memorial chapel and boiler room to south-east, choir vestry to west. Entrance porch at north-west of nave.

EXTERIOR: A consistent design in striped brick, showing the mild influence of William Butterfield. The entrance porch is buttressed, with a single arched door. The nave has three plate-traceried two-light windows per side, with buttresses between, each with quatrefoil openings above; the nave roof is slightly higher than the chancel, and has a belfry at its eastern end. The vestry and memorial chapels resemble transepts, with a three-light window of bar tracery to each; the east end has a similar large three-light window with a cinquefoil light above. The western choir vestry extension, partly concealing the tall four-light west window, is in matching materials but with straight-headed windows.

INTERIOR: overall, a little altered un-aisled interior, showing the steady embellishment of the fairly plain 1850s structure. Unpainted walls of polychrome brick beneath a dark scissor-braced, open-trussed roof. Chancel arch with banded brickwork. Patterned tiling to chancel separating facing pews. Sanctuary is richly appointed, with wall arcading containing alabaster panels. For reredos and wall paintings, see next section.

FIXTURES AND FITTINGS: triple-arched reredos of alabaster, with clustered marble colonnettes, given by Frederick Ellis, 1894. Organ by Bishop & Sons, London & Ipswich, 1906. Pulpit of 1914, with openwork traceried panels of limestone. Stone font of 1890. Unsigned stained glass throughout the church, late Victorian in date, of consistently good quality; the east window was given in 1892 and depicts the Crucifixion. Plain deal bench pews to the nave, in 17 rows. More elaborate oak pews to chancel. The chancel contains elaborate wall paintings. On the east wall, above the altar is Christ in majesty, flanked by the Virgin Mary and St John; below are two scenes, set within painted Gothic surrounds, depicting the Annunciation and St John the Evangelist with the Virgin Mary: by Westlake, 1904, in an early Renaissance style. On the north wall is a scene of St Paul preaching to the Athenians, with the Acropolis in the background. On the south wall is the Adoration of the Magi: both by William Aikman, 1930, in a bright, Bible illustration style.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the lych-gate is of 1927, and was designed by T. Bevir, architect. The large graveyard to the north contains a large memorial cross (separately listed).

HISTORY: this church is successor to a medieval chapel within the large Milford parish. The first replacement was erected in 1839; the present building was consecrated by the Bishop of Winchester on 13 March 1859. It cost £2,023, with funds being provided by the Pulteney family, the Incorporated Church Building Society, and voluntary contributions. The choir vestry was added in 1933, and in 1948 the memorial chapel was enlarged. The original designer, Charles Edward Giles (active 1849-68) was a very busy church architect based first at Taunton and later in London; he worked on no fewer than 43 church projects funded by the ICBS. The church was built to meet the worshipping needs of the expanding village of Pennington: the similarly dated school on South Street (separately listed) shows how secular needs were being addressed also.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: St Mark's Church, Pennington, is designated at Grade II for the principal following reasons:
* The carefully designed building is highly representative of the Gothic Revival's provision of seemly (yet economical) places of worship, executed in polychrome brick in a manner influenced by William Butterfield.
* A little-altered church, retaining its architectural integrity and completeness, and possessing good stained glass.
* Its richly appointed chancel shows successive campaigns of embellishment, including two phases of wall paintings: those by Westlake are of particular quality.
* Group value with the school, war memorial and other buildings.

SOURCES

Lambeth Palace Library, Incorporated Church Building Society file 05244.
File of historical information held in the church.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26516586

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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