1870 – Church of St. Chad, Haggerston, London

Architect: James Brooks

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Interior view published in The Building News, September 9th 1870. A cruciform church with aisles. Central bell cote and tall, pyramidal leaded roof. Red brick with stone dressings. Very high proportions, high pitched slated roof. C13 style with lancets and plate tracery. Wheel windows in transepts. Apsidal east end, with north-east vestry under pyramidal roof, South-east chapel with apsidal end. Inside 3 -bay nave, west bay now partitioned off.Characteristic stout, low round piers of stone. Red brick interior with stone arcade soffits.Very tall chancel arch to rib-vaulted chancel with stone ribs, brick panels.

This church is situate in Nichol’s-square, a short distance from the Hackney-road, and is built of brick, the facing of the exterior and interior being both of red brick with stone veiy sparingly introduced. All the string-com-ses are executed in moulded brick, as also the mouldings at edges of jambs and arches. The church consists of nave and aisles, north and south transepts projecting very slightly from the face of the main walls, chancel, north chancel aisle (used as an organ ohapel, and south chancel aisle (used as a morning chapel), also two vestries for clergy and choir respectively. The entrance to the church is at the west end, by two doors communicating with a narthex. The nave is separated from the aisles by an arcade of four arches with boldly proportioned ijiers, and tho whole of the light is derived from windows in tho clerestory or at the clerestory level, there being none in the aisle walls. The nave and transept roofs are boarded on the under side of the braces and collars, so as to facilitate the transmission of sound. The chancel and south chapel have apsidal terminations, and both are covered with red brick groined vaulting, having stone ribs and carved bosses. Panels have been left beneath the windows of chancel for the insertion of subjects taken from incidents of the birth, life, and death of Our Lord. The altar, with a carved stone reredos, ia placed at considerable elevation above tho nave floor, and a dwarf stone screen-wall, having tiles introduced in various patterns on the surface, divides the nave from the chancel. The choir stalls are of oak, and the remainder of the seats are of pine. The whole of the floor area is laid with Staffordshire tiles. Tho accommodation is for 700 persons. Mr. W. Heushaw was the contractor for tho erection of the church ; the gas fittings were executed by Messrs. Hart, Son, Picard & Co. ; and tho choir stalls by Mr. A. Robinson, of Holborn. “

Published July 19, 2012 | Last Updated February 26, 2013