Highfield Church - Architecture

Architecture

The church originally had a nave, a small chancel with clerestory windows, a south aisle, and a tower with a broached oak shingled spire, which contained one bell. The architect was Joshua Brandon, who died before the building was completed and is buried in the churchyard. The walls of the church are of Purbeck Stone with mouldings of Caen Stone and the painted glass windows were created by Nixon and Ward.

The church has been built onto and altered many times since it was first built.

  • In 1852 a parsonage was added and used as a vicarage,
  • In 1855 the north aisle was added,
  • In 1863 gas lighting was installed (candles had been used in the church before this time),
  • In 1869 the chancel was rebuilt, the spire restored, and the windows raised,
  • In 1885 gas regulators and burners were installed throughout the church,
  • In 1915 the western extension was built,
  • In 1921 a First World War memorial was erected near the south door,
  • In 1955 a west porch was designed by Ernest Berry Webber (who was the architect of the Civic centre of Southampton) and dedicated to Sir Sidney Kimber and his son.
  • In 2011, the pews were replaced with soft seating and the building renovated and updated

Read more about this topic:  Highfield Church

Famous quotes containing the word architecture:

    “Defaced ruins of architecture and statuary, like the wrinkles of decrepitude of a once beautiful woman, only make one regret that one did not see them when they were enchanting.”
    —Horace Walpole (1717–1797)

    “Polarized light showed the secret architecture of bodies; and when the second-sight of the mind is opened, now one color or form or gesture, and now another, has a pungency, as if a more interior ray had been emitted, disclosing its deep holdings in the frame of things.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
    —Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)