Parish Church of St. Martin. Edward Buckton Lamb (1805 or 1806-1869). 1865. Vicar's Road, London. Photograph 2009 and text by George P. Landow [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Two views of the West end.
The "antithesis of the stern Gothic of the Ecclesiologists," St Martin's is "castellated Perpendicular, its exterior irregular and picturesque."
The church interior
Left: Interior. Right: Alabaster pulpit. [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Inside, "[t]he massive roof, a wild web of struts and hammerbeams, is carried on strange colonnettes that start out of the walls like strips if piping. The roof dominates the space and gives it the character of a Tudor great hall. Corbels and capitals have lively carvings.... The pulpit, chancel rail and reredos are of exquisite alabster. Mosaic panels decorate the walls and the roof is brightly painted. The sanctuary is in the form of a polygonal apse, shimmering colourfully beyond the dark wood recesses of the nave" (Jenkins 496).
Left: Chancel ceiling. Right: Wood nave ceiling. [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Left: Columns on columns. Middle: Capital. Right: Carved vegetation. [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Other Views and Related Material
References
Jenkins, Simon. England's Thousand Best Churches. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000.
Crook, J. Mordaunt. The Dilemma of Style: Architectural Ideas from the Picturesque to the Post-Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Last modified 13 July 2012