Description

798-1/42/858 HIGHGATE ROAD
10-JUN-54 (West side)
23
CHRIST APOSTOLIC CHURCH (FORMER CHURCH
OF ST JOHN)

(Formerly listed as:
HIGHGATE ROAD
CHURCH OF ST JOHN, KENTISH TOWN)

II

CAMDEN

TQ2885SE HIGHGATE ROAD
798-1/42/858 (West side)
10/06/54 Church of St John, Kentish Town

GV II

Church. Built on the site of the Kentish Town Chapel by James
Wyatt, 1783, of which only the nave walls and the heightened
shallow western apse remain. The rest rebuilt and extended
1843-5 by JH Hakewill. Grey brick with carved stone dressings.
Slate pitched roofs.
EXTERIOR: north and south aisles with galleries (removed
1889), vestry and south porch, east end with twin stone spired
towers with louvred Romanesque type belfry openings and
lean-to porches decorated with heavy neo-Norman and
thirteenth-century ornament. East facade buttressed with
window of 3 round-arched lights separated by colonnettes;
narrow round-arched window above and roundel in gable which
has Lombard type frieze. Behind the porches, gable ends of
side aisles with 2-light round-arched windows.
INTERIOR: open nave with open timber tie-beam roof. 3
round-headed windows each side. 2 round-headed windows with
rose above at apsidal west end. 3 neo-Norman arches separate
nave from shallow, flat-ended chancel. Carved oak pulpit, pews
with carved ends on choir platform, and nave pews intact. Late
C19 alabaster font on stone base with elaborate openwork
wooden cover suspended from pulley. Late C18 and early C19
wall monuments on both sides of the nave.
Stained glass: mostly of the 1840s, including 'Baptism of
Christ and Lazarus' by Wailes, 1845. In former south gallery,
stained-glass window by Burne-Jones, 1862, depicting the
'Building of the Temple' in storage at St Benet's, Lupton
Street in 1994.
Monuments: many minor tablets. John Finch, d.1797, festooned
sarcophagus, by Charles Regnant. Sarah Pepys, d.1806, south
aisle, mourning woman by an urn. William Minshull, d.1836,
with portrait profile by Chantrey.
(Survey of London: Vol. XIX, Old St Pancras and Kentish Town:
London: 54, 56 & 145-7).

Listing NGR: TQ2888485367

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• St John the Baptist, Kentish Town at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q20876326

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

• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)