St Barnabas's Church, Gloucester - geograph

St Barnabas Church is a

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

located in Stroud Road,

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east of t ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. It was built in 1938–40 and obtained its Grade II status on 9 March 1982. The church's denomination is the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

History

As the population of the Tuffley area expanded in the early 20th century, the “Tuffley Conventional District” was formed in 1907, mostly from the Parish of St Paul's but also including parts of Matson and Hempstead. After the Tuffley School moved to its new building on Calton Road, its former building, built in 1881, was consecrated as a church and dedicated to Saint

Barnabas Barnabas (; arc, ܒܪܢܒܐ; grc, Βαρνάβας), born Joseph () or Joses (), was according to tradition an early Christian, one of the prominent Christian disciples in Jerusalem. According to Acts 4:36, Barnabas was a Cypriot Jew. Name ...

, who had accompanied Saint Paul. It had become overcrowded by

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, but postwar costs precluded the construction of a permanent church. In 1922, a large wooden building was constructed next to the old school, which became the temporary church of St Barnabas. This building is still present today and is used for various church activities. In 1930, St Barnabas’ became its own independent parish, and its first vicar, Rev. Thomas W. Lambert, set about fundraising for a permanent church. The stone church standing today was designed by

Nugent Cachemaille-Day Nugent Francis Cachemaille-Day (1896–1976), often referred to as NF Cachemaille-Day, was an English architect who designed some of the most "revolutionary" 20th-century churches in the country. His Church of St Nicholas, Burnage has been c ...

and built in 1938-1940. It is built in the traditional form with some

Gothic Revival architecture Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

, with the main structure provided by a reinforced concrete frame. It replaced not only the temporary church but St Aldate Church as well. The choir vestry suffered a fire in June 1997. A programme of repair and refurbishment was completed in June 2002, using a combination of parishioner funds, gifts from local organisations, and a major grant from English Heritage,

Architecture

The church is made from C20 concrete, and constructed in the traditional form with some Gothic elements around the windows. The style was influenced by the

Liturgical Movement The Liturgical Movement was a 19th-century and 20th-century movement of scholarship for the reform of worship. It began in the Catholic Church and spread to many other Christian churches including the Anglican Communion, Lutheran and some other Pro ...

, and both traditional and modern materials were used. To link new with old, stones from

Gloucester Cathedral Gloucester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of St Peter and the Holy and Indivisible Trinity, in Gloucester, England, stands in the north of the city near the River Severn. It originated with the establishment of a minster dedicated to ...

and

Tewkesbury Abbey The Abbey Church of St Mary the Virgin, Tewkesbury–commonly known as Tewkesbury Abbey–is located in the English county of Gloucestershire. A former Benedictine monastery, it is now a parish church. Considered one of the finest examples of No ...

were built into the east wall, by the high altar. The construction itself includes reinforced frames, with external brick walls, concrete window frames, and a flat roof. There is a single belfry tower on the South-West side, with a concrete

crucifix A crucifix (from Latin ''cruci fixus'' meaning "(one) fixed to a cross") is a cross with an image of Jesus on it, as distinct from a bare cross. The representation of Jesus himself on the cross is referred to in English as the ''corpus'' (Lati ...

on top. The east and west sides of the tower have supporting

corbels In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the st ...

, and there are two windows on each of the four sides.

Internal layout

The entrance to the building is on the northwest side and leads into a porch. This then leads to the largest part of the church which is a long rectangular

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-typ ...

. The chapel is located on the north side of the building, and

vestries A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

are on the east. At the south end of the building is the

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, access ...

with the

altar An altar is a Table (furniture), table or platform for the presentation of religion, religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, Church (building), churches, and other places of wo ...

and

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. ...

, above this is the organ loft which is inside the belfry tower.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Barnabas Church, Gloucester Church of England church buildings in Gloucester Churches completed in 1940 1940 establishments in England Nugent Cachemaille-Day buildings