Christ Apostolic Church - Highgate Road, London, UK
N 51° 33.151 W 000° 08.535
30U E 698117 N 5715140
This church was, formerly, St John the Baptist, Kentish Town. The building was constructed in 1783 with re-building taking place between 1843 and 1845. The church is located on the south west side of Highgate Road opposite Kentish Town fire station.
Waymark Code: WM1167E
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 08/23/2019
Views: 2
The building, that has twin spires, is mainly constucted from brick and, to a lesser extent, stone. The church ceased its original purpose in 1993 and is now the Christ Apostolic Church, Kentish Town. The building is Grade II listed.
Wikipedia has an entry about the church that tells us:
St John the Baptist, now the Christ Apostolic Church, is a grade II listed building at 23 Highgate Road, Kentish Town, London.
The site was originally the location of an ancient chapel-of-ease which was replaced in 1783 with a church designed by the architect James Wyatt.
That church was in turn substantially rebuilt in 1843-45 by James Hakewill although the nave walls and apse of the original church were reused in the new church. The church became redundant in 1993 and was used for all-night raves but more recently it has been taken over by the Christ Apostolic Church UK and is used as a place or worship once more.
The church is on Historic England's Heritage at Risk register.
As mentioned, the building is Grade II listed with the entry at the Historic England website advising:
Church. Built on the site of the Kentish Town Chapel by James Wyatt, 1783, of which only the nave walls and the heightened shallow western apse remain. The rest rebuilt and extended 1843-5 by JH Hakewill. Grey brick with carved stone dressings. Slate pitched roofs.
EXTERIOR: north and south aisles with galleries (removed 1889), vestry and south porch, east end with twin stone spired towers with louvred Romanesque type belfry openings and lean-to porches decorated with heavy neo-Norman and thirteenth-century ornament. East facade buttressed with window of 3 round-arched lights separated by colonnettes; narrow round-arched window above and roundel in gable which has Lombard type frieze. Behind the porches, gable ends of side aisles with 2-light round-arched windows.
INTERIOR: open nave with open timber tie-beam roof. 3 round-headed windows each side. 2 round-headed windows with rose above at apsidal west end. 3 neo-Norman arches separate nave from shallow, flat-ended chancel. Carved oak pulpit, pews with carved ends on choir platform, and nave pews intact. Late C19 alabaster font on stone base with elaborate openwork wooden cover suspended from pulley. Late C18 and early C19 wall monuments on both sides of the nave. Stained glass: mostly of the 1840s, including 'Baptism of Christ and Lazarus' by Wailes, 1845. In former south gallery, stained-glass window by Burne-Jones, 1862, depicting the 'Building of the Temple' in storage at St Benet's, Lupton Street in 1994. Monuments: many minor tablets. John Finch, d.1797, festooned sarcophagus, by Charles Regnant. Sarah Pepys, d.1806, south aisle, mourning woman by an urn. William Minshull, d.1836, with portrait profile by Chantrey.