Church of St John the Evangelist, with associated walls, railings and gateways, Southwark, London

Summary

Anglican church in Gothic Revival style, 1859-1860, by Henry Jarvis, with vestry of 1912 by Greenaway and Newberry, with associated walls and railings.

Description

Anglican church in Gothic Revival style, 1859-1860, by Henry Jarvis, with vestry of 1912 by Greenaway and Newberry.

MATERIALS: ragstone facing, with Bath stone dressings; the roofs are of slate.

PLAN: the church is set on a west/east axis, with the chancel to the east. The nave is of five bays, with aisles; the square-ended chancel is of 3 bays; and there is a tower to the south west. To the north is an entrance porch, accessed from Larcom Street; there is an entrance at the west end of the church and at the foot of the tower. In the southern angle of the nave and chancel is the original vestry; in the northern angle is the vestry of 1912, replacing the original organ chamber.

EXTERIOR: on the street-facing north elevation the bays of the aisles are separated by offset buttresses. The windows are single narrow lancets protected by hoodmoulds with foliate stops. The porch is in the second bay to the west, and is gabled with a stone cross finial at the apex; the pointed-arched opening is of two orders with colonnettes; the opening contains double boarded doors with elaborate wrought-iron strap hinges. The porch is panelled internally, with later glazed inner doors. The roof of the nave beyond is broken to the north by six steeply-pitched gabled dormers, each containing a cinquefoil light, and each with an iron cross finial. On the south side, the aisle is of only four bays, with the westernmost bay being occupied by the tower. A small porch giving access to the church at the east end of the south aisle does not appear on Jarvis’s original plan. The incomplete tower is topped by wide corner crenellations, apparently a later extension of the capped corners originally designed to support a belfry. The tower has a doorway to the west, and in the second stage are paired narrow trefoil-headed windows to west and south; angle buttresses rise into the second stage. At the west end, the church is entered at the centre of the nave via a doorway similar to that in the north porch; above is a Decorated four-light window of bar tracery, whilst above that is a roundel with cusped tracery of unusual design. The east end is taken up a composition of five lancets ascending in height to the centre, each framed by delicate colonnettes and the whole linked by hood moulds. The original vestry set back to the south is a small unadorned structure with a pitched roof, blind to the east and with a small window to the south. The 1912 vestry to the north consists of two ranges set at right angles: the vestry is entered through a segmental-arched door in the smaller eastern range which has a canted bay to the east lit by a band of short mullioned windows with casement frames; the gable end to the north elevation is lit by a horizontal mullioned and transomed window, with the date ‘MCMXII’ above. The 1998 List entry notes that the design of the church recalls the earlier works of the architect William Butterfield (1814-1900) and of his one-time pupil Henry Woodyer (1816-1896).

INTERIOR: the church has open timber roofs to the nave aisles and chancel, with a wagon roof to the nave, the dormer windows to the north forming a shallow clerestory. The pointed arcades are carried on paired cast-iron columns, with splayed capitals enriched with ivy decoration, a very unusual feature in a ‘High’ Anglican church of this date. Within the chancel the roof has pointed trusses supported on moulded corbels. The pointed chancel arch is supported on clustered engaged columns, the truncated central column supported on a foliate corbel. Spanning the chancel arch is a brass rood beam with coloured decoration of circa 1936 by Ninian Comper. The internal framing of the east window matches that seen outside; the glass dates from 1892, and commemorates George Toulson Cotham, founder and first vicar of the church. Other glass within the church includes some figurative windows in the aisles, understood to have been supplied by a manufacturer in Silvertown, known for producing cheap stained glass, frequently used in mission churches. The construction of the new vestry in 1912, replacing the original organ chamber, freed the original vestry to the south of the chancel, which in 1922 was dedicated as a memorial chapel to the men of the parish who fell in the First World War; a statue of Joan of Arc has been placed in the chapel, and a statue of St George by Comper stands outside. The chapel was later named the Walsingham Chapel, with a model of Our Lady of Walsingham hung within the reredos. The former doorway to the organ chamber, at the east end of the north aisle, is now blocked; this position is now occupied by a Sacred Heart statue, under a baldachino by Comper. The organ is now at the west end of the north aisle, in a panelled enclosure dating from 2001. Original fittings within the church include the enclosed panelled pews situated in the main body of the nave; those in the baptistry at the west end have been brought from elsewhere. The font is original to the church, though it has been moved to the centre of the baptistry: this is of medieval form, on columns, with crocketed corners and a gadrooned top. The pulpit, panelled and arcaded, dates from 1912, and commemorates the work of the Reverend Canon Jephson and Mrs Jephson. Other furnishings include the timber rails protecting the high altar, of splat baluster form with gilding; these are by Comper, and thought to date from about 1928. The rails enclosing the nave altar, which was introduced in the 1970s, follow the design of Comper’s rails, and were made in about 2000. This area has been raised, and new floor tiles placed here and in the chancel. The pleated embroidered reredos is the work of Martin Travers, at one time an assistant to Comper, and is thought to date from about 1931; this has been bought from the Church of the Good Shepherd, Borough Green, Kent. The three medieval-style sanctuary lamps form a memorial to the eight scouts of the 2nd Walworth scout troop, based at St John’s, who were drowned at Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey in 1912. The church contains a number of statues of saints, in addition to those mentioned above, installed at various dates, and reflecting the development of the church and its community. These include Comper’s statue of St John the Evangelist positioned in the south aisle, and a statue of St Martin de Porres, considered to be the patron saint of those working for racial justice and harmony, placed in the north aisle in the late 1990s, as well as one of the Virgin Mary, brought from the demolished St Mark’s, East Street, now in the porch. The late-C19 Stations of the Cross, by Edouard Cabane, come from the same church. The reredoses of the Lady Chapel, and the All Souls’ Chapel, are by Laurence King.

The new vestry consists of two rooms with lobbies: the principal room has a cast-iron chimneypiece in Arts and Crafts style with a relief panel of the Adoration of the Maji; the inner room is fitted with storage chests and cupboards for vestments, and a simpler fireplace set in a panelled surround.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES

The churchyard is partially surrounded by original wrought-iron railings with slender pointed finials. To Larcom Street, the railings are shorter, being set on a red-brick wall brick with stone capping. At each end of this wall is a gateway marked by sturdy brick piers with stone bases and trefoil-moulded stone caps. There are three piers to the western gateway, providing adjacent entrances to the church to the east, and the school to the west. The gateways hold wrought-iron gates, in the same style as the railings. The railings also form the northern part of the pathway leading to Charlestown Street, the original railings extending to the north-east corner of the vestry. (The pathway continues southwards to Walcorde Avenue, with replacement railings.)

History

Church provision in Walworth from the late C18 reflected the diverse requirements of a growing population. The parish church of St Mary, Newington, could only accommodate just over 1000 people, and the Anglican Church of St Peter was built under the auspices of the Church Commissioners in 1820. Thereafter, many more places of worship were established, including non-conformist chapels as well as Anglican churches; Walworth also had more than one synagogue. The Anglican parish of St John was formed out of the parishes of St Mary and St Peter in 1860, responsibility being given to Father George Cotham, a curate of St Mary’s, for building a mission church to serve new housing being built in the area. The Church of St John the Evangelist was built in 1859-1860 by Henry Jarvis. Both building and furnishings were subject to strict economy, and the projected tower was never completed; a timber belfry was erected instead, which was later taken down. The church was, from the start, in the Anglo-Catholic tradition.

Henry Jarvis (1816-1900), district surveyor for Southwark, designed a large number of churches in the borough, and in London more widely. Many of his Southwark churches, including those of St Paul, Lorrimore Square (1856), St Matthew, New Kent Road (about 1867), and St Mark, East Street (1874), have been lost. His most celebrated church, of St Augustine, Bermondsey (1875-1883) survives – though now converted to flats – and is listed at Grade II*. Jarvis’s St Mary Newington Vestry Hall, now Walworth Town Hall, of 1865, is a short distance from St John the Evangelist on Walworth Road. As architect and surveyor to the Guardians of St Saviour’s Union, Jarvis was architect of the Southwark Union Infirmary (1885-1887) in Dulwich, now largely demolished and the Newington Workhouse (demolished); he also designed a number of schools. Amongst his other works, his 1864-1865 Venetian-style warehouse on Farringdon Road is listed at Grade II, as is his Globe Public House (1872), in Borough Market. Jarvis worked for some years in practice with his son, Henry Jarvis (1844-1910).

With the growth of Walworth’s population, and its increasing industrialisation, came an increase in poverty. Churches and missions played an important role in providing support to the poor and education and guidance to young people. The Mission of St John’s College, Cambridge (of which Father Cotham had been a former student) began its work in the parish of St John, and the parish retains connections with the college. The community work of Arthur Jephson, vicar of St John the Evangelist from 1893 to 1908, was praised in a booklet published in the 1890s entitled ‘Walworth Past and Present’: ‘There are country homes for poor children, a day nursery… and a registry for the unemployed, which has been the means of getting many a man, in want, the opportunity of earning a living.’ Jephson also provided ‘penny weddings’ to couples in the parish.

St John’s Schools, for girls and boys, were built shortly after the church, also to Jarvis’s design, immediately to the west in about 1863-1865; the school closed in 2021. St John’s Cottages, a pair of Gothic cottages to the north-east and south-east of the church, were present by the time of the survey made for the OS map surveyed in 1871. A pathway bordered by railings surrounds the eastern part of the churchyard, linking what is now Larcom Street (built in the 1870s) with Charleston Street (formerly Charles Street) to the east and Walcorde Avenue (formerly York Buildings) to the south; the pathway takes in St John’s Cottages, and the vicarage to the north-east, built at some time before 1893. The St John’s Institute building (now St John’s Centre) at the east end of Larcom Street opened in 1901, to serve the church community.

In 1912 the church received a new vestry, designed by FH Greenaway and JE Newberry; working in a predominantly Gothic style influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, the firm designed numerous new churches in Southwark in the first part of the C20, as well as undertaking restorations and additions. In the 1920s and 1930s the church was enriched by a number of new fittings by Ninian Comper, and other notable furnishings have been added.

Reasons for Listing

The Church of St John the Evangelist, Larcom Street, built in 1859-1860 to the designs of Henry Jarvis, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a Gothic Revival church of considerable presence with some unusual details, designed by local architect Henry Jarvis;
* for its rich internal fixtures, including contemporary stained glass, and later contributions by Ninian Comper and others.

Historic interest:

* the church is now a rare surviving example of Jarvis’s church work, the majority of his many South London churches having now been lost;
* for the importance of the church in the C19 and C20 history of Walworth.

External Links

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