Description

TQ 2578 NE COLLINGHAM ROAD, SW5

249/45/5 Church of St Jude

II*

Church. 1870, tower and spire added 1879. By George and Henry Godwin. Kentish ragstone jumper-work with stone dressings. Steeply pitched gabled roofs with bands of pale and dark grey slates; chancel and sanctuary roofs decrease in height. Shingled spire. Gothic style.
PLAN AND EXTERIOR: 7-bay nave over 30 metres in length, chancel and sanctuary, double semi-transepts, SW tower. Geometric tracery windows, those to east end and transepts of 6 lights. Most angles are buttressed. Tower with paired, louvered belfry openings and a clock face to each facade.
INTERIOR: Scissor-braced king-post roof White-wash currently covers polychrome brickwork and sheet copper faced capitals. The nave arcade is carried on thin iron columns with Transitional style iron capitals. For two-thirds of the nave's length its aisles broaden into transepts accommodating galleries at first floor level, supported on an outer row of iron colunms. A further deep gallery across the west end. Shallow chancel has murals of fictive arcading with lilies and passion flowers flanking 2 harp-playing angels on a gold background; northern wall without angels but has the organ. Shallow sanctuary with blue painted roof having gold stars; murals of 1879-80 by Edward Frampton have fictive arcading with angels, prophets, Apostles and elders on a gold background flanking a reredos of alabaster and marble, carved by Thomas Earp and inset with mosaics by Alviati and Burke, the whole representing the Adoration of the Lamb. Coloured marble and alabaster pulpit, on short columns, with carved figures of St Jude, St Peter, St Paul and St Augustine, also by Frampton and Earp, 1881. Original, numbered pews. Minton tiles to the chancel floor, quarry tiles, diagonally set to the nave.
HISTORY: St Jude's was built at a boom time for church building in Kensington and coincided with the first great clashes over ritual. It was a "Low" church built on the initiative of the Revd J A Aston in anticipation of the development of the northern part of the Gunter estates, and financed by rich evangelical businessman John Derby Allcroft, a wealthy glove manufacturer. Seating was designed to accommodate some 1,600 people. It is an unusual example of design attempting to reconcile orthodox ecclesiological ideas about the visible separation of nave, aisles and chancel with the seating traditions of evangelical worship.

Listing NGR: TQ2591978720

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• St Jude's Church, Kensington at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q7593873

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)