Description

SOUTHWARK

TQ3474SE FOREST HILL ROAD 636-1/61/344 (North East side) 25/08/98 Honor Oak Baptist Church and attached walls and railings

GV II

Baptist church. Dated 1891. By George Baines; builder J Scott. MATERIALS: brick in Flemish bond, with stone dressings and polished granite. Roofs of slate with crest tiles. Gothic Revival style. EXTERIOR: all openings pointed arched and in stone unless otherwise noted. High 5-side apse, the 3 eastmost facets finishing in facing gables with 2-light windows; roof finishes in cast-iron finial. Facing gable to vestry on ritual south-east and hipped roof to that on the north. Nave of 5 bays, with north and south aisles; west porch flanked by turrets with high mansard roofs and cast-iron finials. Between ritual north turret and porch a spirelet, now missing its peak. On the centre of the nave ridge a square cupola with high mansarded roof. Box-framed dormer in eastmost bay of north aisle. North aisle elevation in 2nd and 4th bays finish in gabled dormers, each pierced by 2-light windows. Remaining bays lit by sexfoil roundels. All ground-floor windows lit by double lancets; each bay marked by setback buttresses. At west end, aisles angled back to form an arched join with polygonal turret; flat-arched door in pointed-arch aedicule to north face of turret. Top stage of flanking west turrets lit by clerestory lights and lancets in pointed-arched surrounds. West elevation dominated by pair of 2-light windows set in super arch, its peak pierced by quatrefoil round; lower section of window occluded by gable of entrance. Shallow entrance porch entered by 2-light diaphragm arch; sub-ordered jambs and polished granite shafts. Gable kneelers to porch and clasping buttresses to sides. Small lancet to either side lights narthex. Peak of gable to porch bears shield with date 1891. Inscribed to left of entrance: This stone was laid by J. Briscoe President of London Baptist Association, 22 April 1891, I. Samuel VII 12v. George Baines Architect. To the left the following inscription: This stone was laid by the Revd J. T. Walker, Ex-President of Baptist Union, 22 April, 1891, Psalm CXVIII, J. Scott Builder. INTERIOR: sexpartite wood vaulting to shallow apse; sub-ordered chancel arch on corbel shafts. All corbel shafts carved with naturalistic ornament of great vigour. Nave arcade

carried on cast-iron columns, originally intended for galleries, never constructed; each arch consists of pointed, timber-arched truss. Arched braces span the aisles. Tied hammer beam truss to each nave bay with pointed, wood boarded barrel vault. FITTINGS: the chancel furnishings, organ, and baptistry at the ritual east end are intact and noteworthy, as are the original benches in the easternmost bays of the nave. After 1960 the west end of nave given a drop ceiling and enclosure which has not harmed the original architecture. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached low brick walls with piers at regular intervals and cast-iron railings.

Listing NGR: TQ3490474376

External Links

• Wikidata Q26665315

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Recommended Books

• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)