building

St Cuthbert with St Matthias

Philbeach Gardens, Earls Court, London SW5

Building

The Church and its fittings

The church was built in 1884-7 by the architect Hugh Roumieu Gough. The exterior is in red and black brick. The characteristic green copper roof was added in 1946 following severe bomb damage to the original slate roof. There is a project to replace the roof with the original Green Westmorland slate. This project started in 2000, and is backed by a major grant from the English Heritage Lottery Churches Fund. The first two phases are complete, comprising the main roof and the South Aisle. The third phase, covering the North Aisle and its exterior brickwork started in 2007 and is almost complete.

The church is remarkable for its interior, which is very ornate in the Arts and Crafts style of the late Victorian and Edwardian period.

Many of Gough's original fittings have survived, amongst them the pulpit (1887), the rood screen (1893) and the stations of the cross (1888). The interior was lavishly embellished between 1887 and 1914 by the vicar, Father Henry Westall, who added the overwhelming reredos, designed by Geldart (1899), which covers most of the East wall.

The Arts and Crafts designer Bainbridge Reynolds was a member of the congregation, and there are many fine examples of his work in the Church, notably the extraordinary lectern, which mixes virtually every kind of metalwork imaginable, and was described by John Betjeman as 'nouveau-viking'.