Weight: 392 lbs Diameter: 25.5" Bell 1 of 1
Founded by Mears & Stainbank 1911
Dove Bell ID: 56063 Tower ID: 21263 - View Tower Listed: No Canons: Removed Cracked: No
Kentish Town, Oseney Crescent: St Luke
Diocese of London
Church, 623343
http://www.slkt.org.uk/Overview
Grid reference: TQ 294 849
The characteristic blunt, geometrical tower of this church is an immediately recognisable feature of this church, and on closer inspection it may be seen that the whole church shares its blunt, French-inspired geometrical details. The west end, for example, is broad, with a sheer unbuttressed wall, battered between the ground and the window sills, pierced only by three stark lancets with a big wheel window with stone plate tracery with eight large and eight small circular lights round the central eight-lobed motif. The only decoration is the necessary variation in the bond of brickwork to accommodate these features and two bands of stone across the gable.
Visiting and facilities
Building is open for worship
Building
Ground Plan Description and Dimensions
Ground plan:
Nave of four bays with aisles and clerestory and two porches; chancel with tower above and south chapel, north organ chamber; apsidal sanctuary with vestry on the south side.
Footprint of Church buildings: 689 m²
Description of Archaeology and History
The church was designed by Basil Champneys and was consecrated on 4 December 1869 by the Bishop of London. The previous history of church buildings in the parish had been complicated. St. Luke's, King's Cross was the second district to be carved out of the large cld parish of St. Pancras, which was done in 1849. The first had been St. Paul, Camden Square, and upon the erection of a permanent church there the iron temporary church which had served that parish at first was taken down and re-erected, with the permission of the Directors of the Great Northern Railway, on the ground next to the Small Pox Hospital, subject to removal at any time at short notice. The hospital shortly became the site for the new King's Cross terminus, and a site further west for a permanent church was given by the Skinners Company. This building was designed by John Johnson and was built in 1856-61, with frequent delays from want of funds. Within six years this site in turn was wanted by the Midland Railway Company for building the St. Pancras Terminus, and so the church was taken down and re-erected as a Congregational Chapel in Wanstead. The £12,000 which the Railway Company paid in compensation was used to build the present church of St. Luke, on a site in Oseney Crescent given by Christ Chunch, Oxford.
Exterior Description
The characteristic blunt, geometrical tower of this church is an immediately recognisable feature of this church, and on closer inspection it may be seen that the whole church shares its blunt, French-inspired geometrical details. The west end, for example, is broad, with a sheer unbuttressed wall, battered between the ground and the window sills, pierced only by three stark lancets with a big wheel window with stone plate tracery with eight large and eight small circular lights round the central eight-lobed motif. The only decoration is the necessary variation in the bond of brickwork to accommodate these features and two bands of stone across the gable.
The aisle walls are divided into bays by the shallowest of buttresses, and each bay has two simple pointed windows with a linking band of stone, flush with the wall, at the springing of the arches. The clerestory windows, though slightly larger, are similar in design. In the western bays of the aisles are vaulted porches under cross gables with moulded arches of three recessed orders on three pairs of nook-shafts. The aisles continue past the base of the tower, the only change being that the bays north and south of the tower are slightly wider and have room for three windows instead of two.
The tower stands on a substructure which shows clearly the buttresses to the two chancel arches (between nave and chancel and between chancel and sanctuary) by means of extensions of the east and west walls with steeply sloping stone capping. Between these buttresses there is one stage (below the vault within) with arcading of three bays, two blind and the middle one pierced, and above the vault is a plainer stage with three severe loops in the north and south faces.
The uppermost stage of the tower, which houses the bell, has three tall louvred openings in each face with stone sills above a stone stringcourse, and with a stone course at the springing of the arches which reappears each time as blockish capitals to the pilasters between the openings. The variation in width between the east and west faces and the north and south faces is to a great extent concealed by the repetition of the same design on each face. Above the louvred openings come gables, each pierced with recessed stone roundels having eight circular lights round a central circle on the east and west sides and roven on the slightly narrower north and south sides. At the angles are projecting stone water-shoots not carved as gargoyles. The game of unequal gables is finally given away by the roof structure, for the east-west gables are joined by a ridge into which the other two gables abut at a slightly lower level. Access to the tower is by a spiral staircase within a turret at the north-east corner.
The apse is taller than the nave roof ridge, and is polygonal with five faces, the north and south blind but the other three with large two-light windows with sexfoils above of strongly French derivation which take up the whole wall space between the buttresses. Below their sills the walls, like the west nave wall, are steeply battered, and the tiled roof is steeply pitched, both of which features increase the apparent height of the building.
Building Fabric and Features
Stained Glass
c.1862
The three apse windows contain glass representing St. Paul and St. Mary, with a lily in a pot in the sexfoil above surrounded by crosses alternating with crossed palms; Christ Arising and Christ Ascending, with The Creation (represented by roundels of the Sun, Moon, Stars , Birds, Fish and Adam and Eve) round three angels in the centre, all rather like the west window of Selsley, Gloucestershire, by Philip Webb.
Stained Glass
c.1895
Chancel clerestory north : King David
Stained Glass
c.1895
Chancel clerestory south: St. Cecilia
Stained Glass
Late 19th Century
The aisles contain a series of windows representing The Twelve Apostles: in the north aisle, St. Matthias, 1873, St. Judo,1888, St. Simon, 1885 and St. James the Less, 1883, St. James, 1880 and St. John, 1875, St. Thomas, 1881 and St. Matthew, 1889.
Stained Glass
1910
South clerestory: four lights representing St. Alphege, St. Edward the Confessor, St. Thomas of Canterbury and St. Hugh of Lincoln, 1910, by William Morris and Company
Stained Glass
1891
West window: the three lancets contain figures of The Archangels Gabriel, Michael and Raphael and the large circular window above a composition of Angels with Musical Instruments Adoring the Lamb of God, all by Heaton, Butler and Bayne.
Stained Glass
c.1880
Sacristy east window: two small lights with a delightful representation of The Annunciation done entirely in silver stain, giving a sixteenth-century Continental effect.
Interior
Interior Description
The interior of the church is less austere than the exterior since, although there is almost no foliate carving, there are more shafts, moulded stringcourses and ribs to articulate the various surfaces. The nave arcades are of four bays with cylindrical pillars of uniform design with moulded bases and capitals carrying moulded arches. Between the arches shafts on corbels rise to the wall plates and carry the principal roof timbers. The roof is ceiled with panels of timber boarding divided by moulded ribs. The clerestory windows are set within plain reveals with a central detached shaft and the west windows are united into one composition by a shafted arch. The floor is paved with red and black tiles in the alleys and made of wooden boards under the pews. The aisles are quite broad, and also filled with pews, and have moulded brick and stone surrounds to the windows with a central shaft like those of the clerestory. All the wall surfaces are of exposed red brick with one band of stone in the aisles and another in the clerestory, both at the level of the springing of the window arches.
Further east the church becomes richer, and the architectural expression yet more powerful and impressive. The crossing, with a floor three steps above the level of the nave, has a tall arch to east and west with a plain chamfered outer order reaching to the floor and an inner moulded order supported on paired colonettes with moulded capitals and bases about ten feet from the floor. The crossing and the sanctuary are ceiled with brick vaults with moulded ribs carried by shafts in the angles, the former with a circular bellway in the centre. The ribs and the bellway are all of stone. Arches on the north and south of the crossing open into the organ chamber and a vestry (formerly a chapel) respectively, though the arch on the south has been boarded up. At a higher level the walls are enriched by blind arcading with the middle arch pierced to form a window, thus repeating the external pattern. This chapel has a Caernarvon-headed door with good ironwork on the east wall opening into the sacristy, and the roof is embellished with chevron painted decoration along the beams.
The sanctuary is relatively plain, with exposed brick walls like the rest of the church and a simple reredos. The altar is six stops above the level of the chancel, and the floor is paved with red and buff tiles with excellent mediaevalistic patterns in groups of four or sixteen on the different levels. The steps are of stone, and there are also some bands between the sets of patterned tiles. In the cantod wall on the south side is a credence of alabaster under a trefoiled arch, and in the straight south wall are sedilia stepping up towards the east with small vaults within triangular arches.
Fixtures and fittings
Altar
The altar is a simple wooden table.
Reredos
c.1932
The reredos is a large panel of green marble within a black odging, originally of c.1932 and improved in 1952.
Pulpit
The pulpit is of oak with open traceried panels on a stone base.
Lectern
1882
The lectern is a brass eagle of 1882 from St. Paul's Camden Square.
Font (object)
The font is octagonal, of marble, with inlaid crosses and other motifs on the four principal faces. The oak cover has an iron cross and a brass ring handle.
Organ (object)
1893
The organ was built by Willis in 1893 and restored in 1962; it has three manuals and pedals and pneumatic action.
Bells
Churchyard
Grid reference: TQ 294 849
Burial and War Grave Information
It is unknown whether the building is consecrated.
It is unknown whether the churchyard has been used for burial.
It is unknown whether the churchyard is used for burial.
It is unknown whether the churchyard has war graves.
National Heritage record for England designations
There are no records of National Heritage assets within the curtilage of this site.
Environment
Ancient, Veteran & Notable Trees
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
There are no records of Ancient, Veteran or Notable Trees within the curtilage of this site.
Renewables
| Renewable | Installed |
|---|---|
| Solar PV Panels | No |
| Solar Thermal Panels | No |
| Biomass | No |
| Wind Turbine | No |
| Air Source Heat Pump | No |
| Ground Source Heat Pump | No |
| Ev Charging | No |
Species summary
There are no records of species within the curtilage of this site.
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
'Seek advice' Species
More information on species and action to be taken upon discovery.
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
Further information
Sources
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