Church of St Andrew and boundary walls, Redruth, Cornwall

Summary

Anglican church, 1883-1884, by James Hicks and John Pollard Seddon; completed 1936-1938, to an updated design of 1927 by RF Wheatly of Cowell, Drewitt and Wheatly of Truro.

Description

Anglican church, 1883-1884, by James Hicks and John Pollard Seddon; completed 1936-1938, to an updated design of 1927 by RF Wheatly of Cowell, Drewitt and Wheatly of Truro.

MATERIALS: the western end is of partly-coursed and rubble pink Carn Marth granite with grey granite ashlar quoins. Bath stone from the Pictor quarries in Wiltshire is used for fine external dressings. The eastern end also of Carn Marth stone, snecked and regularly coursed with ashlar Bath stone dressings. Slate roof. Internally, dressings in local granite and Wild Duck elvan. Dressings in the chancel and facings to the nave are in Bath stone. The arcade columns are local Cornish granite.

PLAN: the church has an aisled nave of four bays; because of the topography the west end basement is accessed at street level. The church was extended by three bays with a north transept, south sacristy and Lady Chapel, and chancel, forming a fat cruciform plan.

EXTERIOR: the western 1883-1884 part of the church is designed in a free Early English style, and the eastern part was completed in a strict Early English style in 1938. The church is constructed on a site sloping down from east to west, with the main elevation being the west gable to Clinton Road. This elevation has angle buttresses (dated ‘18’ and ‘83’ to left and right respectively) flanking a porch to the basement. The porch is a shallow gabled projection containing a square-headed doorway under a two-centred arch moulded in two orders; a band of blind arcading flanks the gable and runs out to the buttresses, above which is a hipped roof with brattishing on the eaves and a dentilled cornice. Flanking the porch are small coupled lancets. Above the porch is a large two-centred-arched five-light window with multifoil circular tracery in the head and a hoodmould. The gable end is banded polychrome rubble up to the weathered sill-band of a stepped triple-lancet in the apex, which is coped with kneelers. Slightly set back on each side are stepped parapets to the west ends of the aisles.

The north and south elevation comprise a seven-bay nave and aisles (four at the west with three added to the east). The north elevation has a bridge with steps to a two-centred doorway in the western bay. The buttressed aisles have small windows of two arched lights with trefoils in the head and the basement has windows of two shouldered lights. At the eastern end is a double doorway set in a segmental arch. Stepped back above the aisle, the western bays of the nave are defined by pilasters each with stepped triple lancets, cusped and flanked by two lights, under depressed two-centred arches. The design differs in the added eastern bays: the nave windows are composed of simple lancets with ashlar surrounds. At the east end on the north side, the transept is buttressed and has a single tall lancet window in the gable wall; there is an octagonal turret at the junction of the nave and transept roofs. The two-bay chancel, in similar style, has two lancet windows on each side and an east window of three cusped lancets. Below the window is a stone block inscribed A M D G / AD 1937 with a central carved cross. On the south side the Lady Chapel and sacristy are single-storey and have flat roofs.

INTERIOR: the church is entered at the north-west through a small porch and panelled double-doors. The aisles are seven-bay arcades of two-centred arches slightly set back behind granite piers. The piers are quatrefoil in section, up to cylindrical caps at the springing points, from which the inner shafts continue as engaged coupled columns terminating in massive roughly-hewn granite capitals below the level of the nave’s clerestorey windows. The windows are set back within an arcade of two-centred arches, between which the line of the piers is continued in the form of sunk slender coupled shafts. In the added eastern bays, a simplified version of this design is executed in ashlar. The aisles have paired windows within pointed-arch reveals. Two of the north aisle windows depict Mary and Martha (1971), and the Raising of Lazarus (1973). The south aisle windows are mainly memorials to those lost in the First World War.

The timber pulpit is octagonal with carvings of the saints, set on a clustered polished green-granite (possibly serpentine) base with ashlar capitals and a short flight of ashlar steps. At the west end is an elaborate font in coloured marble and Caen stone, dating to 1884 and possibly designed by Seddon (it has a timber cover of 1927). It is mounted on a stepped plinth in front of a three-bay arcade opening onto steps which descend to the basement. The nave ceiling is boarded in pitch pine with simple ribs and king-post trusses. Pews are stained pine.

The chancel has plastered walls with Bath stone dressings, and the ceiling has a grid of decorative painted plaster work. The east window shows Carn Brea and the tower of the Church of St Euny, Wheal Euny, and Redruth town clock in the lower part; with Christ and the Archangels Michael and Gabriel above. Below is a reredos of the Crucifixion flanked by carvings of St Andrew, St Christopher, St Uny and St Ninian. Below the reredos is an Agnus Dei (the lamb and flag, also the symbol of Redruth). The high altar is of Ham Hill stone with the Delabole slate mensa. The sanctuary panelling and the choir stalls are of stained pine. The floor is slate slabs.

The Lady Chapel has a low vaulted ceiling at its east end, with a flat ceiling to the western part; the two bays are defined by a segmental arch to the ceiling. Both have painted decorative plaster decoration. The chapel contains memorial lancet windows with plain surrounds and C20 stained glass.

The basement runs half the length of the nave and mirrors the C19 phase of the building. It is accessed from stairs at the west end of the nave and from the west door. Either side of a stair lobby are two small rooms, now used as an office and toilets. Each of these has a C19 folding screen with a glazed overlight; the southern screen has cupboards built against it. The ceiling (the floor of the nave) is of steel-beam construction. There is a stage to the east.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: a stepped, low granite rubble wall with granite ashlar copings defines the street boundaries on the north and west sides. Opposite the west entrance to the church the street entrance is defined by quoins with caps carved with a cross motif. The same feature is used at the three entrances on the north side; these have decorative wrought-iron gates.

History

Redruth’s parish Church of St Euny was founded in the C15 with the main church rebuilt in 1828, and stands within its own churchtown a mile from the town centre. Supplemented by a chapel of ease on Chapel Street from 1828, by the late-C19 this building was too small for the growing population and a campaign for a new church was begun, led by Reverend James William Lane. At a public meeting on 1 December 1880 in the recently-opened Lamb and Flag Coffee Tavern, the first Bishop of Truro Edward White Benson (1829-1896) announced that Lord Clinton had donated land for a new church. The site to the south of the town centre was formerly the location of Treruffe Manor but by 1880 the area was being developed as new housing for more-wealthy Redruthians; the land was given by Lord Clinton and the houses were designed by Redruth architect James Hicks, who built his own house adjacent to the site of the church. A Building Committee was set up and donations received from the Clinton and Basset families, alongside fundraising by the parishioners. The architects for the church were James Hicks (1846-1896) and John Pollard Seddon (1827-1906). Tenders were invited in October 1882, and a full set of architectural drawings were published in The Architect alongside a narrative by Seddon in December 1882.

James Hicks (1846-1896) was born in Redruth and lived in the town for almost his entire life. By the age of 25 Hicks had set up his own practice; an early commission was the remodelling of Tolvean on West End, Redruth for Alfred Lanyon, a prominent businessman. Hicks’ relationship with businessmen and industrialists continued throughout his career, and for ten years he was the local agent of Lord Clinton. The bulk of Hicks’ work comprised public buildings including chapels and schools throughout Cornwall, but he also had an influence on the building stock, and the civil direction, of his hometown. In 1883 he acquired the lease for the nearby Carn Marth granite quarries from Lord Clinton and James Buller, forming the Cornish Granite and Freestone Company. In 1894 Hicks became the first President of the Ratepayer’s Association and was a member of Redruth Urban District Council from 1895. Despite being brought up as a Primitive Methodist, Hicks gave his architect’s fees of £100 to the Church of St Andrew. Hicks’ architectural contribution to Redruth is evident in all its streets, but perhaps most in the groups of buildings on Alma Place and at the north end of Clinton Road.

The foundation stone of the Church of St Andrew was laid on 26 July 1883 by Dr GH Wilkinson, Bishop of Truro (Benson was by then Archbishop of Canterbury but continued to support fundraising to complete and enhance the church) and the construction of the nave and west front commenced. The contractor was Mr P Blowey of Plymouth. £3,400 had been raised; this provided only for this portion of the church to be built, plus a schoolroom for 400 children underneath the church. St Andrew’s nave and a temporary chancel were consecrated by George Wilkinson, the Bishop of Truro, on 26 November 1884, and the schoolroom was opened later that day by Lord Clinton. An organ by Fleetwood of Camborne was installed in 1891 in an organ chamber built the previous year. A transept, chancel, a morning chapel, and a tower with a spire were all planned by Hicks and Seddon at an estimated total cost of £10,000. However, by the turn of the century the fundraising target was not reached due to competing pressures including the celebration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, encouragement to support the completion of Truro Cathedral, and a memorial for Bishop Benson who had died in 1896. The onset of the Great War and the following social upheaval left Redruth with a half-finished church. A number of memorial windows were commissioned from Clayton and Bell from 1914 to 1918 for the south aisle and west end of the church.

In 1925 the Diocese advertised to ask for funding and donations to complete the church to the total sum of £10,000. The advert was accompanied by a perspective of the present church by Redruth architect Sidney Toy (1876-1967), who also proposed the new additions. However, Reginald Francis Wheatly (1879-1959), a Truro architect who had previously worked in partnership with EH Sedding and later with Cowell and Drewitt, eventually drew up a modified design based on that by Seddon and Hicks. The entire scheme was eventually abandoned.

In 1932 a ‘Way of Renewal’ weekend was launched to promote the building fund. New plans for the proposed completion of the church were drawn up by Cowell, Drewitt and Wheatly in 1936 and the foundation stone for the eastern part of the church was laid by Commander Sir Edward Nicholl on 22 April 1937. On 22 September 1938 the church was dedicated by Dr Joseph Wellington Hunkin, Bishop of Truro. The east end of the church then comprised the three eastern bays of the nave, a chancel, a north transept with an enlarged organ, and a bell tower with a short spire (removed in 1965). South of the chancel a sacristy and Lady Chapel were also built. The total cost to complete the church was £14,000 and it could seat 750 people. Alongside the structural completion of the church, a number of fittings were also added in 1938. These included the east window which was made by William Glasby (1863-1941) to a design by Arthur Creed Hambly FRSA (1900-1973), a former headmaster of Camborne and Redruth School of Art; and the reredos designed by Wheatly and carved by Violet Pinwill (1874-1957). The east window and reredos were given by the Redruth-born philanthropist Commander Sir Edward Nicholl KBE (1862-1939) who also gave £2,000 to complete the church. The plaster work to the chancel ceiling was carried out by Mr J Hunt of Plymouth and the pulpit was presented as a memorial to Dr Hudson.

The Lady Chapel was fitted later with further memorial windows, including on the south wall by John Hall and Sons Ltd (1958), Charles Blakeman (1951) and Goddard and Gibbs (designed by Mr Buss, 1955). The north aisle of the nave contains two pairs of stained-glass windows by Frederick W Cole made in 1971 and 1973.

Reasons for Listing

The Church of St Andrew, Clinton Road, Redruth is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as an accomplished example of the work of Redruth’s principal C19 architect James Hicks, in a rare partnership in this case with John Seddon;
* the interior is finely articulated, with fittings including a C19 marble font possibly by Seddon and a collection of good-quality mid-C20 stained-glass windows which add to its interest;
* for the use of local materials including Carn Marth granite from nearby quarries (managed by Hicks from 1883), and the variety of Cornish stones internally, chosen by Hicks to show the range of stones available;
* the location of the church on its corner site has a strong presence in the streetscape of Clinton Road, an area which had been scarred by mining and regenerated through Hicks’ and Lord Clinton’s vision.

Historic interest:

* as a significant component in the late-C19 post-mining building boom in Redruth, many buildings for which were designed by Hicks;
* as a purpose-built and much-needed church in the centre of Redruth, the protracted completion of which reflects national and global events of the time.

Group value:

* with the former Passmore Edwards Free Library and Redruth College opposite, designed by James Hicks in 1894-1895 and 1891, and the Church of St Andrew War Memorial, both of which are listed at Grade II.

External Links

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