St Mark, West Wickham

Introduction

The architects were Bingham Towner Associates, with associate architect I. Holmes-Siedle.

History

Mass was first said at West Wickham by Father P. Byrne in 1936 in the Justin Hall. In 1948 West Wickham became an independent parish with Father E. West as its first parish priest.

Architecture and furnishings

The church was built between 1962 and 1963 to designs by Bingham Towner Associates. The church has a polygonal plan of a distorted octagon with a higher west bay protruding as a narthex. The central plan ensures no seat is more than five rows away from the sanctuary. The west window, of pink and blue panes, may be the original window of antique glass by Schott, made at Grünenplan, Germany.

A statue of St Mark with the lion, by a parishioner, stands on a corbel beside a door to the sacristy. The altar and tabernacle stand are made from white Sicilian marble with a black skirting. The Stations are rectangular linden wood panels, carved in Italy. The outer walls are of yellow stock bricks laid in stretcher bond, with a timber roof carried on a reinforced ring beam.

The roof is of copper on felt insulation. At the northeast is a small extension housing a parish room with an additional entrance to the east end. The roof is folded, with clerestory windows in the gables of each bay. At the centre is a 30-foot high copper-clad flèche of Douglas fir plywood on a frame of British Columbia pine, topped with a copper cross.

The west facade has an open timber porch (originally just a canopy) to the west doors. Above the west doors is the west window with mullions and transoms. The upper portions of the west bay's side elevations are glazed as additional clerestory windows. The narthex houses the stairs to the loft at the southwest, with a small repository below the stairs and a memorial stone for the official opening of the church.

Internally, the folded roof has a ceiling of Canadian pine with clerestory windows with some marbled coloured panes. The west loft has metal railings entwined with vine branches and grapes. At the base of the flèche is a narrow glazed band, with substantial cross-bracing supporting the structure. A linden wood crucifix at the west was carved in Austria. The original doors and benches are made of polished utile, a West African timber.

Visiting

The parish organised from c.1962 a regular Sunday Mass at Coney Hall, serving the interwar Coney Hall Estate. The St Mark's 200 Club, started in 1996, runs a monthly draw with prizes of £100, £50 or £30.

The former baptistery at the northwest is used as a crying room, confessional and library. A circular font of Portland stone with a Westmorland slate top is housed in a niche created from a door to the sacristy.