Description

CAMDEN

TQ2884NW ST SILAS PLACE
798-1/53/1525 Church of St Silas the Martyr
10/06/54

II*

Church. 1911-13. By Ernest Charles Shearman. Purple-brown
Fletton brick with stone dressings, tiled roof. 4-bay aisled
nave with clerestory, transepts and apsidal chancel in
stripped Gothic style.
EXTERIOR: west end mostly blind with bellcote and inset stone
cross flanked by narrow lancets flanked by small flying
buttresses. North and south facades, single and 3-light
trefoil-headed lancet clerestory windows. Each gabled transept
with 3 similar windows, the main entrance being in the south
transept. Chancel with brick pilaster strips and Lombard
frieze, alternate bays having pointed lancets linked by a
continuous stone string. South entrance porch with inscription
on parapet, flanking corbel figures of knights with armorial
shields, standing statue of St Silas to left, stone
crucifixion to right with inscribed plinth erected as war
memorial. Projecting chapel of St Francis on (liturgical)
south side added 1913.
INTERIOR: with passage aisles, a chapel on the south side, a
small chapel opening on the north from a narrow ambulatory.
Tall chancel with open timber roof above prominent
baldacchino, enriched with neo-Gothic carvings of Christ in
Majesty, designed by Shearman and executed by Messrs. Burns
and Oates. Crucifix of 1922 by the Art and Book Company within
baldacchino originally placed above canopy. Altar candlesticks
and sanctuary lamp also designed by Shearman. Sanctuary
flanked by wooden statues of SS Silas and Peter, 1917. Narrow
ambulatory arched over with lancets, leading to former mission
church of 1884 (altered). Lady Chapel in south-east angle of
church, St Thomas's Chapel to north of altar with painted
reredos by Victoria Somerville. Spacious nave with organ loft
at west end; organ by Bishop and Son, 1914.
HISTORICAL NOTE: a mission church was founded in this
heathenish patch of Kentish Town in 1884, capable of seating
150. An American, Howard Henry Paul, left »7,000 in 1902 for
the building of a proper church; delays over his will meant
that work could not begin until 1911, by which time his legacy
had shrunk to »4,000. The church has always been High Anglican
in tradition, following the ideals of its founder, the Revd G
Napier Whittingham. St Silas is Shearman's first and most
important church, where he established his characteristically

severe brand of brick Gothic and elegant sense of space.
(Survey of London: Vol. XXIV, King's Cross Neighbourhood:
London: -1952: 145).

Listing NGR: TQ2821084693

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• St Silas Church at Wikipedia
• St Silas Church official website
• Wikidata Q28963230

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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