Ink and watercolour drawing inscribed "Elevation of the Painted Window and Altar Piece / as executed at St Paul's Church Deptford by William Collins, 1813"
The Rectory also designed by Archer, was demolished, ca 1886.[6]
Twentieth century
In the 1970s a basement room at the church, known as 'The Crypt', was used as a reggae club.[7][8] By the mid-1980s it was a regular venue for all-night psychedelic rock revival concerts and club nights.[9][10] Colin Jerwood of the anarcho-punk band Conflict would also put on gigs there.[11]
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.[12]
Architecture and Features
Exterior of the apse with its unconventional convex Venetian windowExterior view of north sideInterior looking eastInterior looking west
The church is built from Portland stone, 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 pilasters 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.[13] The body of the church is approximately square in plan, with its pedimented roof set transversely. Two additional, liturgically and practically unnecessary[14] side entrances in the middle of the walls, each approached by a grand divided symmetrical staircase, suited to a Palladian villa.[15] The east wall has a projecting apse.[16]
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 observed.[17] 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 tenor is the oldest bell, and was cast in 1772.[18]
References
^Bridget Cherry, Nikolaus Pevsner, London 2: South London 1983:403; listed as one of three of Thomas Archer's "most accomplished and characteristic works" by Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840, 3rd ed. 1995, s.v. "Archer, Thomas".
^St Paul's, Deptford, is discussed in M. H. Port, ed. The Commission for Building Fifty New Churches, (London Record Society), 1986.
^Archer's original drawing are in the British Library, among King's Maps, xviii.
^It manifests "the direct influence of the Baroque churches of Rome, which Archer, of course, will have known at first hand." (Sir John Summerson, Architecture in Britain, 1530–1830 4th ed. 1963:181).
^Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1859 by Rupert Gunnis
^De Koningh, Michael; Cane-Honeysett, Laurence (19 July 2018). "Fall and Rise". Young, Gifted & Black: The Story of Trojan Records. Sanctuary Publishing Ltd. p. xlv. ISBN9781787591042.
^Masouri, John (11 November 2009). "Talkin' Blues". Wailing Blues – The Story of Bob Marley's Wailers. Omnibus Press. ISBN9780857120359.
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