Description

TQ27 ROCKLEY ROAD
(East Side)

333/2/10044 CHURCH OF ST SIMON
and attached Hall

II

Church with attached hall. 1879 - 1886 by Sir Arthur Blomfield; late-C20 alterations. Church of yellow stock brick with red-brick and ashlar dressings; renewed plain tile roof with decorative ridge tiles. In Gothic style having: chamfered plinth; pointed-arched openings, the windows with cusped lights, the board doors with decorative hinges and set in gabled projections, and all openings having hoodmoulds on foliate ball stops; buttresses with offsets and gablets; stepped eaves; moulded ashlar coping to gables and to the raised verges; ashlar finials. Plan: 3-bay chancel; 7-bay aisled nave, the south aisle widening at west end with the two western bays roofed transversely; polygonal north-west tower; hall at east end. West end: nave lit by large plate-tracery window of 2 lights and sexfoil, with flanking 1-light windows; central door in gabled porch; door on right in half-gabled porch giving access to lower bay set at right-angles. Projecting at left corner is 4-stage clock tower which has lancets to 1st stage; red-brick diaper-work to 2nd stage; a triple arcade to each face of 3rd stage, the central arches with louvred slit windows; 4th stage has offset base with 2 gablets, a cusped louvred light to each face, a continuous hoodmould, and 3 clock dials; stepped dentilled eaves below brick steeple with ashlar bands pierced by quatrefoils; metal cross-finial. North side: aisle has one 2-light and three 3-light windows with doorway at west end and another to left; clerestorey has 5 paired windows and one single window set in recessed panels with cogged brick heads. Chancel clerestorey has sexfoil windows in similar recesses; at lower level, gabled bay projecting on left has 3 stepped windows, and aisle continuation on right has door under gablet. Across front of left bay, low projecting bay with 3-light window links church to hall. South side: similar, the 2 gabled bays at west end each having a window of 3 stepped lights. East window of 5 stepped lights. Hall: of red brick in English bond with ashlar dressings; tripartite roof, the centre gabled and with plain tiles and flanked by flat-roofed bays. Single-storey with clerestorey. 3 x 4 bays, gable-end on, having a large, square-headed, stepped, 4-light, mullion-and-transom window to each gable; and to each return 2 clerestorey windows of 3 stepped, pointed-arched lights rising through eaves under gablets. Interior of church: 5-bay aisle arcades having brick arches on stone columns with simple bases and foliate capitals, the end arches narrower; similar chancel arch carried by corbelled attached piers; principal-rafter roof trusses with corbelled arch braces, through purlins and collared rafters; glazed tile dado; stencilled decoration to chancel walls and reredos; decorative pink marble war memorial. The 2 west bays of nave were separated off circa 1980. Hall has simply-moulded columns to arcades; arch-braced roof; corbelled mantle-piece to fireplace; and panelled cupboards.

A well-detailed late-Victorian church designed by a significant architect.

Listing NGR: TQ2366279643

This List entry has been amended to add sources for War Memorials Online and the War Memorials Register. These sources were not used in the compilation of this List entry but are added here as a guide for further reading, 27 October 2017.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Church of St Simon at Wikipedia
• Church of St Simon official website
• Wikidata Q27086065

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects by Harwood, Richard (2012) Paperback