religious
William Douglas Caroe, 1903
St Barnabas Church, St Barnabas Road, Walthamstow, E17 8JZ
St Barnabas Church is a grade II* listed building with many Arts and Crafts designed features.
Walthamstow Central
Walthamstow Queens Road
Seating available. Viewing of an Arts and Crafts church outside of Services.
The nave arcades spring from lozenge shaped stone piers with crenelated capitals.
The choir stalls and pulpit were carved by Norris and Sons from English oak, through the two server’s stalls were made later by Mr Gunton and his two sons. The remaining oak fittings were made by Dart and Francis of Credition, Devon. The Nave pews are of oram, a Canadian wood, supplied by Bennett Furnishing company of London. The Font is of Purbeck stone, with an inner lining of lead. At the time of its consecration the church had the one stained glass window at the east end made by Clayton and Bell. Depicting ‘Our Lord in Majesty and Twenty Four Elders casting down their crowns’.
In addition to the east window there are six other examples of stained glass. In the baptistery oriel is a window of ‘Our Lord saving St Peter from sinking beneath the waves’, flanked by lancets containing figures of ‘Noah’ and ‘St John the Baptist’, with the rare ‘bell’ monogram of the makers Clayton and Bell. The east widow of the Lady chapel also by Clayton and Bell is based on Millais, ‘Christ in the House of His Parents’. The two other windows in the Lady Chapel were designed by William Anderson, made by W James of Willesden. One shows ‘Our Lord disputing with the Doctors in the Temple’, the other depicts ‘The Salutation’.
Within the Chancel, the statue of St Michael and two angels on the wooden reredos were carved in 1910 by Alec Miller of C R Ashbee’s Guild of Handicraft.
The two-manual organ, by Fisher of Oxford incorporating – in the opinion of Noel Mander – an instrument of the 1800s by Eustace Ingram, was installed in 1904.
At the east end of the nave’s south aisle is the Chapel of St James, a memorial to the former church and parish of St James, amalgamated with St Barnabas in 1962. The altar, with its white marble mensal was the former Lady Chapel altar of St James’ being the gift of Fr Vernham in 1891 as a memorial to his father.
The stone panel forming the gable above the external elevation of the east window is carved with a foliated stone cross, encircled with a crown of thorns at the intersection of the arms. It has been a symbol of the faith in the parish since 1903.
There is a North-west bell turret with a single bell.
