Listed Building: CHURCH OF ST PAUL (1375705)

CHESTER CITY (EM) SJ4166 BOUGHTON 1932-1/6/9 (South side) 10/01/72 Church of St Paul GV II* Parish church. 1876 and 1902-5. By John Douglas. Stone-dressed red brick and timber framing with brick and plaster panels with grey and grey-green slate roof. Through nave and chancel of 4 bays plus apsidal bay 1876; outer south aisle 1902 and clock-housing on spire 1905. PLAN: the nave and original aisles are under a single broad, steep roof with impressive full-width apse, east, and gable, west. EXTERIOR: the west end has a gabled ashlar porch with lantern on pier between two 20-panel doors surmounted by 5 lancets in recessed arched panels; the rest is stone-dressed brick, with chamfered, pinnacled buttresses articulating nave and aisles; 3 large lancets above porch; clock-face in cusped stone surround near apex of gable. Set back slightly, a 2-storey porch to west gallery stair, north, balances the hip-roofed apsidal baptistry, south, with a cusped lancet to each face. The outer south aisle, separately roofed, has grey-green slates like the baptistry. The ground slopes down steeply to the east: open undercroft of increasing depth to outer aisle on wall to canted west end and 3 brick piers supporting aisle-floor bressumer on timber longitudinal arches; brick-panelled close studding below sill-rail; a cross-window in canted west end; 3 mullioned and transomed 5-light windows, each with an upper band of glazed quatrefoils; 2 panels with centre-rail between each pair of windows have lozenge bracing. The eaves are coved with plaster panels. The eastern apse has a pair of small windows in recessed lancet-panels to each face of crypt; moulded brick floorband and stone sillband; 3-light east window; 4 cusped lancets in each oblique face. Continuous roof over nave, original aisles and apse with west belfry spire rising from roof showing Douglas's concern for solid geometry: truncated pyramid beneath triple band of bell-openings with slated louvres; probably 1905 clock on south face; broach spire. The roof of the 1902 outer south aisle has a hipped west end and a blunt pyramidal spire at the east end. The main roof has 3 hipped lucarnes on each slope and a "lean-to" lucarne on north face of spire. INTERIOR: structural carpentry of pine. 4 very tall octagonal aisle-posts to each side of nave support mid-slopes of roof; arch-braced collar-beam trusses with crown posts to nave; arched trusses to aisles. Steeply-sloped west gallery. Stone-banded cruciform brick piers to south-west baptistry and outer south aisle. Boarded floors. Plaster ceiling with all rafters and quadrant-braced purlins exposed, including to the apse which forms the presbytery. The walls are decorated with stencilled patterns in Arts and Crafts manner, graduated upward from dark to light colours, Douglas's symbol for earth and heaven. Decorated organ to east of south aisle; wrought-iron chancel screen; low oaken screen to south bay of apse used as vestry; oak desk and pine pews probably by Douglas. Stained glass in most windows, 1881-1920, in the Baptistry by Frampton, in the north aisle by Kempe and the rest by Morris and Co., with good east window 1881, south-east window 1881 and east window of south aisle 1887. HISTORICAL NOTE: this was Douglas's own parish church and he designed its internal decoration, probably in 1902. It illustrates his mastery of timber framing and spatial articulation on a grand scale. Considered by Pevsner to be the boldest of Douglas's church designs. Amongst his Germanic buildings it comes nearest to a Rhineland setting, seen from the liturgical east across the Dee, crowning a picturesque group of buildings on steeply rising ground. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Hubbard E: Cheshire: Harmondsworth: 1971-: 35;172-173; Hubbard E: The Work of John Douglas: London: 1991-: 125-6;128;201;247). Listing NGR: SJ4180866445