Looking at Buildings

, printed from the Looking at Buildings website on Thursday 28th March 2024

St Mark's

Map [1]

Founded c.1230 by Maurice de Gaunt and transformed by his nephew and heir Robert de Gournay into a charitable Hospital that became school buildings after the Reformation. Used by Huguenot refugees from 1687, it became the official church of the Corporation in 1722, and is still the only church in England owned by a local authority. Of the exterior only the tower (1487, of coral pink sandstone) and W front are easily visible. Fine W window, an 1820s replica of the C15 original; eight lights beneath a large rose. Additions to the C13 fabric are here grouped by date. Two-bayGlossary Term [2] S aisleGlossary Term [3] with Dec. W window, early C14. Late C15 timber panelled roof. ChancelGlossary Term [4] and three-bayGlossary Term [5] chapel E of the S aisleGlossary Term [6], both c.1500. POYNTZ CHAPEL (S of the chancelGlossary Term [7]), 1523, fan vaulted with the arms of Sir Robert Poyntz, Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon; C16 Spanish tiled floor. The lower stage of the W façade and the rebuilt N transeptGlossary Term [8] church are from J.L. Pearson's restoration, 1889-90.

Rich and unusual fittings, well covered in the excellent church guidebook. The highlights are the rare STAINED AND PAINTED GLASS: mainly C16 French and Flemish (much from the 1823 estate sales of William Beckford and Sir Paul Bagehot), English C15, Venetian and German glass C16 - C18, and a late C18 figure of St Thomas a Becket by Benjamin West. Richly wrought SWORD REST by William Edney, 1702 from the blitzed Temple Church. MONUMENTS: naveGlossary Term [9] - William Birde, 1590, big RenaissanceGlossary Term [10] canopy; chancelGlossary Term [11] - Sir Maurice and Lady Ellen Berkeley, 1464, and Bishop Miles Salley, c.1500; S aisleGlossary Term [12] - unknown merchant c.1360; John Cookin, 1627 (a kneeling schoolboy with his books and pens); S aisleGlossary Term [13] chapel - Maurice de Gaunt, 1230, a very vigorous effigy; Robert de Gournay, 1269; George Upton, 1608 elaborate Jacobean [14] canopy; Dame Mary Baynton and two sons, 1677, kneeling beneath triple domes with draped curtains, perhaps by Caius Gabriel Cibber.

Last updated: Monday, 26th January 2009