More information : The area in which the Church of St Philip, Weston Mill, now stands was built up as a result of the major work begun in 1896 on the North Yard Extension to Plymouth’s Royal Dockyard. Sir John Jackson, who directed the work, acquired some ten acres of land at St Budeaux to provide housing for his workers and their families, known for many years as ‘Jackson’s Estate’. Provision for the spiritual welfare of the community was made with two Mission Halls; one was in Ocean Street, and the other, a temporary timber structure near the site of the present church, was licensed for public worship as St Philip and St James’s Mission Church in January 1898. A Mission house was established, now the public house known as the Weston Mill Hotel, standing to the south-west of the church.
In 1904 the church was linked with the parochial organisation of the existing parish of St Budeaux. At this stage, plans for a permanent church building, on a site given by Richard Hall Clarke of Bridwell House, Collumpton, were commissioned from Bastick W Nunn of Devonport. The project did not come to fruition until 1912, when Montague Alton Bazeley (1863-1952), understood to have been employed in developing the adjacent workers’ housing, produced a revised proposal. Bazeley was born in Plymouth, where he was responsible for a wide variety of building projects; St Philip’s is thought to have been his only church. The new design was based on the plans drawn up by Nunn, by then deceased, but Bazeley made a number of significant changes, notably to the plan, east end, and fenestration of the church. Nunn’s plans included a tall spire, which does not appear on drawings made by Bazeley in 1911; these may later have been adapted to include a spire, but certainly no spire was built. The church’s foundation stone was laid on 4 May 1912, and on 18 October 1913 the building was consecrated as a chapel-of-ease to the Church of St Budeaux [Listed Building NHLfE number 1130049]. The sanctuary Bazeley had planned was not built, and a temporary structure provided at the east end of the building is thought to have remained for more than fifty years.
During the Second World War the church’s basement vestry served as an air-raid warden’s shelter, and a siren was installed on the flat roof of the tower porch. The fall of a bomb nearby on 21 April 1941 caused minor damage, with the west window suffering more seriously. In 1933 the new Parish of St Philip, Weston Mill, was formed. In 1968, an apse was built, to a new design, incorporating a large window by Father Charles Norris of Buckfast Abbey [NRHE number 1266782]. A timber roof was added to the tower porch in 1976. In 1981 a new church hall was built to the north-east of the church, replacing a 1920s timber structure. The church has been without a vicar since 2008, but continues to operate under the guidance of the churchwardens and licensed reader.
Church, built 1912-13. The architect was Montague Alton Bazeley, developing plans by Bastick W Nunn, and the builders were Messrs Lapthorn. Both architects and builders were local.
MATERIALS: coursed south Devon hammer-dressed limestone, the quoins being rock-faced with drafted margins; the dressings are of Bath stone ashlar. The roof is of slate, and there is a timber louvred stage with pyramidal capping to the tower porch. The apse is of concrete.
PLAN: the church stands on a north-east/south-west alignment, but the following description follows liturgical orientation. The rectangular footprint is varied by the tower-porch at the south-west corner, with a stair tower to the west, and by the transepts projecting to north and south at the east end. The semi-circular sanctuary of 1968 extends from the centre of the east end. The site slopes upwards from the south-west, and a basement below the west end contains the vestry and bathrooms.
EXTERIOR: the appearance of the church is affected by the fairly steep slope, in response to which the elevated building is composed of strong blocks, rising upwards in stages, its massive effect being enhanced by the use of roughly-dressed stone, the angular buttresses, and ramped walls to the steps and perimeter. The window tracery is early Perpendicular in style, with Decorated windows to the transepts. The south front, to Bridwell Road, has steps rising to the pointed south doorway, above which rises the tower, the upper stage having a pointed window with a hood mould. The tower has setback buttresses with offsets. To the east of the tower, the south aisle has paired windows with segmental pointed arches, linked by hoodmoulds, the bays being separated by buttresses; the clerestory has smaller paired windows. The projecting south transept is lit by a single window, and has a cross finial to the gable. The north elevation is similar, but with the full four bays of the nave being expressed; the gable of the north transept has lost its finial. There is a large, transomed west window, above a projection with slated roof, and quatrefoil lights, creating an internal niche for the font. The west end of the north aisle has a shouldered-arched door opening. Against the west side of the tower is the canted stair tower, the spacious lower part having cusped lights extending in length with the descent of the stair, with a more restricted stair above. The east end is dominated by the flat-roofed 1968 apse, which is composed of a framework of concrete mullions and transoms, containing panels of concrete and, in the central section, stained glass. A shouldered-arched doorway leads to the south transept. This elevation is partly rendered, and there is an unfinished wall to the north; these features are apparently the result of the temporary sanctuary having been removed.
INTERIOR: the interior is spacious and symmetrical, with aisles separated from the nave by a four-bay arcade of pointed arches on piers with moulded capitals and bases; the clerestory sits above a roll-moulding. A fifth bay, at the east end, represents the chancel, with the roll-moulding following higher arches to the transepts, and single, rather than double corbelled trusses to the boarded barrel-vaulted roof. The sloping boarded roofs of the aisles are supported on angled brackets pierced with cusped tracery; the aisles are separated from the transepts by segmental pointed arches. The panelled chancel arch, in the eastern wall of the original church building has cusped panels with a hood-mould terminating in angel-corbels of 17th century appearance. Norris’s brilliantly-coloured window, depicting St Philip, is an example of the technique for which Norris is known, using slabs of coloured glass (or ‘dalles’) set in resin, making up concrete-framed panels. The porch is accessed by double doors with cusped lights and a tall rectangular fanlight, filled with leaded panes. The original woodblock floor remains. The furnishings of the church include the choir stalls and book rests, which have been removed from their original position in the chancel, and distributed to other positions within the building; the oak pulpit on a stone base, contemporary with the construction of the church, the organ, rebuilt by Hele and Co of Plymouth and Exeter, and provided by Sir John Jackson. There are memorials of the First and Second World Wars in the south aisle.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the narrow plot on which the church is built is enclosed by coped stone walls, the entrances being marked by gate piers with moulded pyramidal finials of Bath stone. Standing to the east of the church is the L-shaped church hall, built in 1981. (1) |