Church at Lower Kingswood

Image: © Stefan Czapski Taken: 17 Nov 2017

The Surrey volume of Pevsner lists the dedication as 'St Sophia', though it now seems to go by the name of 'Wisdom of God'. To my eye, there are few clues externally as to what to expect inside. But notice the semi-circular west window - which might (just) have been inspired by Hagia Sophia in Constantinople - the church of the Holy Wisdom. To be found inside are a number of fragments of Byzantine sculpture, including two huge capitals from a church at Ephesus. They were brought back by a Dr Edwin Freshfield, who - along with his collaborator Sir Cosmo Bonsor - seems to have been a great enthusiast for the early Eastern church. The two men commissioned the design from the architect Sidney Barnsley, who produced an interior unmistakably Byzantine in inspiration. Pevsner gives a date for Barnsley's church of 1891. To my mind it has something in common (especially in terms of materials) with two other Surrey churches of about the same era: Image - by Harrison Townsend (who went on to design the Horniman Museum); and Image - by Lutyens Both of those designs are later than Barnsley's. I'd be curious to know whether the two better-known men were familiar with Barnsley's work at Lower Kingswood.

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