St Paul's, Deptford, is one of

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

's finest

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

parish churches, cited as "one of the most moving C18 churches in London" in the '' Buildings of England'' series. It was designed by gentleman

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Thomas Archer Thomas Archer (1668–1743) was an English Baroque architect. His buildings are important as the only ones by an English Baroque architect to show evidence of study of contemporary continental, namely Italian, architecture. It is said that hi ...

and built between 1712 and 1730 in

Deptford Deptford is an area on the south bank of the River Thames in southeast London, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich and London Borough of Lewisham. It is named after a Ford (crossing), ford of the River Ravensbourne. From the mid 16th century ...

, which was then a settlement in

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

but is now part of South East London. It was one of the 50 churches that were to be built by the New Church Commissioners, although only 12 were ultimately constructed. With

St John's, Smith Square Smith Square Hall (formerly St John's Smith Square) is a concert hall in the centre of Smith Square, City of Westminster, Westminster, London. Its name was changed by its current operator, Sinfonia Smith Square, in 2024. Originally a church, ...

, it was one of two churches designed by Archer to be built under the Act.

History

Construction

With rising urban growth in Deptford (mainly made up of literate, skilled workers tending to dissent from the established church), the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches decided to counter this drift away from the established

Anglican communion The Anglican Communion is a Christian Full communion, communion consisting of the Church of England and other autocephalous national and regional churches in full communion. The archbishop of Canterbury in England acts as a focus of unity, ...

by building a major new Church of England church in the area. To this end they appointed

, one of their fellow commissioners, to design a church in Deptford. Archer also designed St John's Smith Square and Birmingham Cathedral. He began almost immediately, designing it in his usual Roman Baroque style and completing the fabric and most of the decoration by 1720 (though work continued until its consecration in 1730). The church was built by Edward Strong the Younger a friend of

Christopher Wren the Younger Christopher Wren (1675–1747), of Wroxall Abbey, Warwickshire was a Parliament of Great Britain, Member of Parliament and the son of the architect Sir Christopher Wren. Life Wren was the second but first surviving son of Sir Christopher Wren an ...

. The

Rectory A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, p ...

also designed by Archer, was demolished, ''ca'' 1886.

Twentieth century

In the 1970s a basement room at the church, known as 'The Crypt', was used as a reggae club. By the mid-1980s it was a regular venue for all-night psychedelic rock revival concerts and club nights. Colin Jerwood of the

anarcho-punk Anarcho-punk (also known as anarchist punk or peace punk) is an ideological subgenre of punk rock that promotes anarchism. Some use the term broadly to refer to any punk music with anarchist lyrical content, which may figure in crust punk, ha ...

band Conflict would also put on gigs there. In May 2000 the church was damaged by a fire. The structural damage was confined to the east end, where much of the stained glass was lost and the joinery and decorative finishes were badly charred. The whole of the interior, including the organ case, was blackened by smoke.

Architecture and Features

The church is built from

Portland stone Portland stone is a limestone geological formation (formally named the Portland Stone Formation) dating to the Tithonian age of the Late Jurassic that is quarried on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, England. The quarries are cut in beds of whi ...

, and, as with most of these churches, it is raised on a crypt that is mostly above ground, thus needing a flight of stairs to enter. The most unusual feature of the building is the cylindrical tower with a steeple, around which is wrapped a semi-circular portico of four giant Tuscan columns; colossal

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s articulate the body of the church facades. The steeple embedded in the plane of the church wall echoes the apse at the east end. It was an afterthought, which required structural strengthening of the underpinnings of the west end. The body of the church is approximately square in plan, with its pedimented roof set transversely. Two additional, liturgically and practically unnecessary side entrances in the middle of the walls, each approached by a grand divided symmetrical staircase, suited to a Palladian villa. The east wall has a projecting

apse In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...

. The interior has two side aisles each separated by two giant Corinthian columns, which continue as attached columns on the other walls. There are side galleries supported by the giant columns, with an organ gallery above the entrance. The east window is in the form of a Venetian window but following the curve of the apse, "a very Baroque trait, no doubt indulged in by Archer on the precedent of Vanbrugh's licenses" Sir

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

observed. This is articulated by small Tuscan columns. The tower contains three bells, originally hung for change ringing but long since unringable. These were all cast at various stages, by the

Whitechapel bell foundry The Whitechapel Bell Foundry was a business in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. At the time of the closure of its Whitechapel premises, it was the oldest manufacturing company in Great Britain. The bell foundry primarily made church bells ...

: the tenor is the oldest bell, and was cast in 1772.

References

External links

Parish website

St Paul's Deptford Church Development Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paul's Church, Deptford

Deptford

Churches completed in 1730 18th-century Church of England church buildings

History of the London Borough of Lewisham English Baroque church buildings Georgian architecture in London Neoclassical architecture in London 1730 establishments in England

Neoclassical church buildings in England