Description

748/6/301 SALISBURY ROAD
12-FEB-76 (East side)
PARISH CHURCH OF ST LUKE

II
DATES OF MAIN PHASES, NAME OF ARCHITECT: 1874-6, by Benjamin Ferrey & Son.

MATERIALS: Red brick (English bond), with limestone dressings, probably Bath stone. Blue slate roofs.

PLAN: Small nave with south porch, south transept and vestry to its east, short chancel. A projected north transept and two-bay enlargement of the chancel were not built.

EXTERIOR: The style is early Gothic. The gabled west end faces the village green, and has a simple bellcote, and two pairs of lancets each with a small oculus above. They are divided by a central buttress. The two-light nave windows have an oculus, this time in plate tracery. At the last bay of the nave on the north side is a dressed stone arch filled by a temporary wall where a transept was planned. The east wall was also intended as a temporary wall; it has three even lancets and an oculus in the gable.

INTERIOR: The interior is brick-faced, with bands of dressed stone linking the windows at sill level and at the springing point of the arches. There is a broad transverse arch close to the roof line west of the transept; the slightly lower chancel arch springs from corbels below the abaci. The roof is timber panelled, of mansard shaped section, with semicircular trusses on corbels. Flooring not known (carpeted).

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: The east wall has a full-width reredos of stone, doubtless by Ferrey, with a flat top at sill level, and at the ends, higher pointed arches. Recessed panels are painted with the Creed, Lord's Prayer, Commandments etc., and some diaper patterning. The font is in 13th century style, with an octagonal bowl on grey marble clustered shafts. Oak pulpit with blank traceried arches, foliate spandrels and a deep foliage frieze at the top. The triple east window and the west window have stained glass signed by T.F. Curtis of Ward & Hughes, 1899-1900. The nave and transept have cathedral glass in attractive pale blue, green and pink. Beneath the west window is a marble war memorial in three tablets forming a cross. The nave has the original bench pews of unstained oak. The choir stall fronts and communion rail are unobtrusive 20th century additions.

HISTORY: The foundation stone was laid on April 15, 1874, and the church was opened in 1876. Benjamin Ferrey (1810-80) was a well-known Gothic Revival architect. He was a pupil of A.C. Pugin, knew his son, the great A.W.N. Pugin, and became his biographer (1861). Ferrey set up in independent practice in about 1834. He was the diocesan architect to Bath and Wells from 1841 until his death, and undertook much work in that diocese. He worked in partnership with his son E.B. Ferrey in his later years.

SOURCES:
Lambeth Palace Library, Incorporated Church Building Society, file 07593
(www.churchplansonline.org)

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The church of St Luke, Burton, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* A pleasing Victorian Gothic village church by Benjamin Ferrey, almost unaltered in all its essentials.

* A careful use of materials - plain brick and stone - directly and honestly expressed

* Good Victorian fittings, the reredos, font, pulpit and seating probably to Ferrey's design.

* Fittings and structure work harmoniously to give a sense of honest simplicity which was one of the aspirations of the Gothic Revival.

This List entry has been amended to add the source for War Memorials Register. This source was not used in the compilation of this List entry but is added here as a guide for further reading, 27 October 2017.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Parish Church of St Luke at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q26447319

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

• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]