Clergy House, St Saviour's, Ealing, London

Summary

Anglo-Catholic mission clergy house and men's social club, completed 1909 in the Gothic Revival style, formerly associated with the Church of St Saviour, Ealing, which was bombed during the Second World War.

Description

Anglo-Catholic mission clergy house, in the Gothic Revival style, completed 1909, formerly associated with the Church of St Saviour, Ealing. Designed by the architect George H Fellowes Prynne.

MATERIALS: orange brick with decorative ashlar and carved stone bands, window surrounds, dressings, coping and finials to front elevations, yellow stock brickwork to rear. A flat concrete roof forms three terraces, together with plain tile hipped and gable roofs to main range, hipped Welsh slate roof to servants’ range.

PLAN: a sub-rectangular plan, comprising an asymmetric two-storey clergy house and a former men’s social club, with three roof-top terraces to either side of a third-storey oratory flanked by a stair penthouse to the west and a caretaker’s flat to the east. Entrances to the clergy house (west) and the former men’s social club (east), either side of a ground-floor passageway that once gave access to the Church of St Saviour at the rear. A three storey servants’ range is attached to the rear north-east corner and a stair turret that once gave access to the men’s social club and the caretaker’s quarters is attached to the north-east corner of the structure.

EXTERIOR: the clergy house sits within a terrace of buildings, between the Gothic Revival façade of Christ the Saviour Church of England Primary School to the west and the single-storey Grove Gospel Hall annexe to the east.

Main (South) Elevation
The main (south) elevation has a buttressed, asymmetrical, five-bay and principally two-storey facade with a pair of gateways flanked by projecting buttresses, supporting a third-storey gabled oratory. It is built in orange coloured English-bond brickwork with decorative ashlar limestone bands. The ground floor of the first and second bays has a pair of ashlar mullion and transom bay windows with leaded lights and low decorative crenellated parapets, and the first floor has a pair of round-headed eight-light mullion and transom windows. One of the ashlar bands forms a cill and drip mould for the first floor windows, while a further band forms the lintel and marks the line of the flat concrete roof, behind a diaper and plain brick semi-crenellated parapet wall, capped by moulded coping stones. The band is pierced by cast-iron rain-water drain pipes that drain off the roof and empty into cast-iron rainwater goods with crenellated storm boxes.

The central third and fourth bays have a pair of gateways leading into a through passageway from the street; a pair of nine-light mullion and transom windows flank a statue of Christ standing within a canopied niche above, beneath a second-floor crow-stepped gable end with a Chi Rho finial. The gable elevation is pierced by a limestone tracery window, which lights the interior of the oratory. The passageway is entered by a moulded four-centred pedestrian arch and a depressed vehicular arch raised on banded brick and ashlar posts, and closed by late C20 wrought-iron gates, modelled on the original gates which are now at the rear. An ornamental band of small recessed brick panels with cusped stone heads is situated over the arches, containing two carved stone plaques inscribed ‘Clergy House’ and ‘S.Saviour’s Church’ in gothic script. The passageway has a smooth surfaced plaster ceiling supported by a single moulded cross-beam. Glazed doorways with Caernarfon arch surrounds permit access to the Clergy House on the western side of the passageway and to the community rooms (former men’s social club) on the eastern side. The passageway passes through a pair of matching gateways in the rear elevation into a courtyard. These arches are closed by the wrought-iron gates that were originally hung in the arches of the front elevation. One of the gates has a memorial plaque attached to it that reads – ‘These gates were erected in memory of Emma Caroline England sometime member of St. Saviour’s Church’.

The fifth bay has a narrow frontage, with a pair of nine-light mullion and transom windows that span the width of the bay at ground and first floor. At second-floor level an oratory which spans the width of the roof with an unusual north-south alignment, is flanked by two roof-top terraces screened by parapet walls. The larger terrace to the west is accessed by a rectangular-plan penthouse with a hipped plain tile roof and is attached to the west elevation of the oratory. The smaller east terrace is accessed from the ‘L’-plan penthouse caretaker’s flat, which also has a hipped plain tile roof. A further north roof terrace, which is screened by a plain brick parapet above the stair turret that is accessed from the caretaker’s flat.

East Elevation
The east elevation comprises a blind wall built in two sections, the first in two-storeys, in orange brick, and the second, beyond the roof terrace, in yellow stock bricks and rising to three storeys in height and forming the east wall of the caretaker’s flat. The wall is not square to the frontage and the bay width widens through the depth of the building.

Rear Elevation
The rear elevation has a projecting three-storey servants’ range to its north-west corner and a stair turret to the north-east corner. The central two bays over the passageway arches are similar in design to those of the front elevation, with a figure of Christ’s crucifixion centred over a traceried rose window in the gable. A foundation stone dated ‘June.12.1909’ is situated at the base of the western buttress. The flanking three-storey bays, have plain yellow stock brick walls with orange brick banding that integrates it with the servants’ range and the stair turret. The mullion and transom windows to the ground and first floors, and the mullion windows to the second floor have brick reveals, flat lintels and less defined moulding than those of the front elevation. The ground floor kitchen window is a timber double-sash of a similar appearance to the timber casements in the servants’ range.

Servants’ Range
The servants’ range is a three-storey structure built of yellow stocks with orange brick bands and window surrounds, with a hipped Welsh slate roof. The elevation is asymmetrical and the timber casement windows vary in size, level, and design. The structure is linked to the ground and second floors, and to the roof terrace of the main range by a narrow re-entrant southern corridor range, with an external doorway at ground floor. The south-east corner of the servants’ range has a canted corner to allow more daylight to the corridors and the kitchen. A C20 steel fire escape is built against the north elevation of the servant’s range and is not of special interest.

Stair Turret
The stair turret is a three-storey structure entered by a half-glazed double door in a stone surround, beneath a four-light mullion window overlight. It provided access to the ground and first floors of the former men’s social club and to the caretakers’ flat on the second floor. Like the servants’ range it is asymmetrical, it is built of yellow stock bricks with orange brick bands and window reveals. The windows are painted metal leaded casements with limestone lintels and cills sizes of varying sizes, widths and heights. The north-west corner of the stair turret is canted to allow more light to fall on the north elevation of the main range.

INTERIOR:

The entrance to the clergy house from the passageway opens into a stair hall, which gives access to an office (former drawing room), the refectory, the kitchen, a cloakroom and toilet. The former drawing room and refectory are lit by mullion and transom windows in the south walls; they are restrained decoratively with simple cornices, picture rails, and dados. The refectory has an Arts and Crafts manner green faience glazed brick fireplace set within an oak over-mantel, with an adjacent wall mounted brass bell-push. The kitchen retains its cupboard alcove and original doors and windows. A doorway from the kitchen allows access to the ground-floor of the rear servants’ range.

The Gothic Revival open-well stairs have substantial turned newel posts with ball finials and pendants, turned balusters, stained handrails with raised beads and panelled soffits. There are four flights with half-landings and winders rising to the second-floor landing. The lower landing gives access to an open area with opposed coffer benches where the clergy were permitted to hold meetings with ladies from the parish. At first-floor level, the stairs give onto an axial corridor lit by a skylight at the western end, with four priest’s bedrooms on the northern side and four private sitting rooms on the southern side. Each bedroom has an overlight over a six-panel door to permit shared light to illuminate the corridor, a built-in timber wardrobe, a small fireplace and a fitted sink. A library to the east of the priests’ sitting rooms has fitted bookcases and cupboards. A baffled communicating doorway at the eastern end of the corridor opens into the vicar’s drawing room (formerly one of the three rooms of the men’s social club). A connecting door on the northern side of the corridor permits access from the servants’ range. All of the rooms on the first floor have Arts and Crafts style fireplaces and mantels, of different sizes and heights.

At the second-floor, the stair rises up to a landing within a penthouse with a skylight over the stair well, leading to the eastern side to the two rooms of the oratory, providing access to the west roof terrace, and rising via steps to a bathroom with an original cast-iron bath. The oratory has an exposed arch-braced timber gable roof, with a narrow rectangular dormer window in each side beneath a flying bressumer. It is divided into two rooms by a bi-fold timber partition, with glazed panels over. The timber altar and panelled reredos are set on a raised platform against the north gable wall, beneath a rose window. A stone piscina and niche with a medieval cusped oak surround is set into the east wall adjacent to the altar. The southern room, now the vicar’s bedroom has an Arts and Crafts fireplace against the west wall and is lit by mullion windows in the east and west walls, and a tracery window in the south gable.

A glazed timber door set in a Caernarfon arch surround, on the east side of the passageway, leads to the two ground floor rooms of the former men’s social club, which is also reached through the doorway at the base of the stair turret. This also gives access to the first-floor club room, (now used as the vicar’s drawing room), and to the second-floor ‘L’-plan caretaker’s quarters. The servants’ range has service rooms to the ground-floor including a larder and a former laundry over a cellar boiler room. A winder stair against the east wall rises to the full height of the structure. At first-floor there are common rooms and on the second-floor there are three bedrooms and an axial corridor that acted as a clothes airing area, with an access hatch to the roof terrace.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: a limestone memorial statue taking the form of Christ’s crucifixion is situated within the rear courtyard. The crucifix is a moulded stone cross with corpus and a gold mosaic disc, on a memorial block supported by a pair of angels kneeling in prayer, mounted on a moulded base. The memorial block is inscribed – ‘Of your charity pray for the soul of Augustus Charles Buckell priest of S. Saviour’s 1898-1936 and first vicar of this parish'.

History

The Church of St Saviour (the mission Church of Christ the Saviour) Ealing was a late Anglo-Catholic church, designed by the architect George H Fellowes Prynne. Construction work commenced in 1897 and it was consecrated in June 1899. The church was set back from the street frontage on a large plot of land that had formally been occupied by gardens to the rear of Christ Church Infants School (built 1878). Initially worshippers had to pass down the eastern side of the attached school house to reach the church, but during the first decade of the C20, the school house was demolished to make way for the construction of a new clergy house and gateway.

The Clergy House, completed in June1909, doubled as a gatehouse to the Church of St Saviour, and was also designed by George H Fellowes Prynne. It was to be occupied by a vicar, the parish clergy, and three servants. The Church of St Saviour was destroyed by incendiary bombs in 1940; fortunately, the clergy house survived the attack. In the meantime, services were commenced in the parish hall during November 1940, which became known as Little St Saviour’s. In 1951 a decision was finally taken not to re-build the Church of St Saviour, and Christ Church Ealing Broadway became the Church of Christ the Saviour upon the reunion of the benefice, and the clergy house became the parsonage.

Reasons for Listing

The Clergy House of 1909 by George H Fellowes Prynne is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Historical interest; the Clergy House, completed in 1909, provided accommodation for five clergymen and three servants, and acted as a gatehouse to the Church of St Saviour (the mission Church of Christ the Saviour) and was also designed to house a men’s social club from the outset. It is therefore very unusual in combining these three functions in one building;
* Architectural interest: a well-conceived asymmetrical exterior intended to impress and to have an impact on the streetscape, while respecting the adjacent and earlier Gothic Revival infants’ school; built of high quality materials, the exterior is finely decorated with ashlar mouldings and diaper brickwork;
* Architect: designed by the notable and accomplished architect George H Fellowes Prynne, to complement the Church of St Saviour consecrated in 1899 and also designed by Fellowes Prynne;
* Interior fixtures and fittings: Arts and Crafts inspired interior, fixtures and fittings including fireplaces, doorways, doors, door furniture, cupboards, book shelves and bathroom fittings;
* Intactness: the exterior is unaltered retaining all of its original leaded window fenestration. Internally, apart from the loss of the kitchen fittings and the former laundry equipment, the interior is virtually in original condition, retaining its original plan and all of its Arts and Crafts fixtures and fittings.

External Links

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.