St Alban's Church | |
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Church of St Alban the Martyr | |
![]() St Alban's Church, Southampton
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50°56′20″N 1°23′15″W / 50.9390°N 1.3874°WCoordinates: 50°56′20″N 1°23′15″W / 50.9390°N 1.3874°W | |
Location | Swaythling, Hampshire |
Country | England |
Denomination | Anglican |
Website | Parish of Swaythling |
History | |
Founded | 20th century |
Dedication | St Alban |
Consecrated | 17 June 1933 |
Architecture | |
Status | Parish church |
Functional status | Active |
Heritage designation | Listed building - Grade II |
Architect(s) | Nugent Francis Cachemaille-Day |
Architectural type | Church |
Style | Gothic |
Specifications | |
Materials | Lime mortar rendered brick |
Administration | |
Parish | Swaythling |
Deanery | Southampton |
Archdeaconry | Bournemouth |
Diocese | Winchester |
Province | Canterbury |
Clergy | |
Bishop(s) | Bishop of Southampton |
Vicar(s) | The Revd Peter Dockree |
St Alban's Church, Swaythling, Southampton, stands on Tulip Road, just off the main Burgess Road. The church, and its associated hall, is a Grade II listed building.
The Parish of St Alban was formed at the beginning of 1932, mainly out of the South Stoneham Parish, but at that time there was no St Alban's church, only a site on which to build it. The land had been part of Swaythling Farm and had been acquired through the foresight of the then Archdeacon of Winchester (Ven. A. E. Daldy). Until the new church was ready worship in the new parish took place in St. Agnes Church, from 1905 to 1933, on Portswood Road and in the Burgess Road Mission which until then had been in Highfield Parish (latterly known as St Alban's Mission).
St Alban's Church was completed in 1933.
The site was large enough for not only for the church but for the vicarage and large halls; the importance of the grouping of the buildings means that they are collectively listed as Grade II on the English Heritage list of protected buildings.
St Alban's Church was one of the first to be designed by the noted architect Nugent Francis Cachemaille-Day and built by the Southampton builders GE Prince & Sons.
A "big cruciform church with (a) low, broad central tower," it is on the Latin Cross plan and is late Gothic in style. The traditional outward appearance of the church contains a "spacious and well shaped interior", with a centralised altar that Pevsner described as "original and innovative". The east end of the church which would normally have formed the chancel was used as a Lady chapel, while the main altar is sited under the central tower much closer to the congregation - now a common arrangement but present at St Alban's from the first. Space for a choir, which in churches at this time was generally seated between the congregation and the altar, was to be provided in a western gallery which was never completed due to a lack of funding.
St. Alban's was one of the first churches Cachemaille-Day designed and it shows the architect's early exploration of the logic of the Liturgical Movement which would come to a fuller expression in the more obviously radical designs of later churches, for example St Michael's, Northenden.