Description

ISLINGTON

TQ3284SW CANONBURY ROAD
635-1/54/187 (South West side)
29/09/72 Church of St Stephen

GV II

Anglican church.The original church of 1838-9, by Henry
William Inwood, Edward Inwood and E.N.Clifton; it was bombed
in 1940, and a new church was built in 1957 to the designs of
Arthur Llewellyn Smith, incorporating the original facade to
Canonbury Road and the spire, slightly reduced in height.
White Suffolk brick and stone to Canonbury Road, brown brick
and stone to the body of the church, roof of corrugated
aluminium. East front to Canonbury Road divided into three
bays by a pair of three-sided buttresses running up into
octagonal turrets above the gable, the outer bays being
flanked by angle buttresses terminating in pinnacles. Twin
entrances in the outer bays, with segmental pointed arches
under gabled hoods of 1957. At gallery level the central bay
has a small flat-arched window set under an elaborately
moulded pointed arch, the stonework of the turret and spire
forming a decorative gable above this; the side bays have
two-light pointed windows. The parapet has a central gable out
of which rises an octagonal turret flanked on four sides by
octagonal piers linked by flying buttresses; the first stage
of the spire reads as eight gabled lucarnes with circles of
openwork on alternate faces.
The side arcades are of brown brick and stone, six bays with
two-light pointed-arched windows between buttresses; beyond
the ritual east end the church was extended in 1974 to provide
a flat.
The interior is a single space now oriented liturgically in
the reverse of its original direction. Arcade of
five-and-a-half bays consisting of octagonal columns carrying
stright-sided pointed-arched vaults over narrow aisles and a
vault in the form of a shallow mansard cantilevered out over
the nave. Ritual east end of brick decorated with projecting
bricks and a large neo-Baroque mural painting showing the
martyrdom of St Stephen by Brian Thomas, c.1960, acting as a
reredos under a bracketed canopy. The only part of the
original church evident in the interior is the buttressed base
of the spire which forms the central feature of the ritual
west end; between the buttresses a three-light arcade with
curvilinear tracery, ogee heads and fleur-de-lys finials,
originally the reredos; above it one three-light interior
window with rectilinear tracery and stained glass by Carl
Edwards; organ chamber to either side behind grille-work.

Listing NGR: TQ3206284166

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26585622

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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