With rising urban growth in Deptford, the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches decided to counter this drift away from the established Anglican communion by building a major new Church of Englandchurch in the area. To this end they appointed Thomas Archer, one of their fellow commissioners, to design a church in Deptford. Archer also designed St John's Smith Square and Birmingham Cathedral. He began almost immediately, designing it in his usual Roman Baroque style and completing the fabric and most of the decoration by 1720. The Rectory also designed by Archer, was demolished, ca 1886. In May 2000the church was damaged by a fire. The structural damage was confined to the east end, where much of the stained glass was lost and the joinery and decorative finishes were badly charred. The whole of the interior, including the organ case, was blackened by smoke.
Design
The church is built from Portland Stone, and, as with most of these churches, it is raised on a crypt that is mostly above ground, thus needing a flight of stairs to enter. The most unusual feature of the building is the cylindrical tower with a steeple, around which is wrapped a semi-circular portico of four giant Tuscan columns; colossal pilasters articulate the body of the church facades. The steeple embedded in the plane of the church wall echoes the apse at the east end. It was an afterthought, which required structural strengthening of the underpinnings of the west end. The body of the church is approximately square in plan, with its pedimented roof set transversely. Two additional, liturgically and practically unnecessary side entrances in the middle of the walls, each approached by a grand divided symmetrical staircase, suited to a Palladian villa. The east wall has a projecting apse. The interior has two side aisles each separated by two giant Corinthian columns, which continue as attached columns on the other walls. There are side galleries supported by the giant columns, with an organ gallery above the entrance. The east window is in the form of a Venetian window but following the curve of the apse, "a very Baroque trait, no doubt indulged in by Archer on the precedent of Vanbrugh's licenses" Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observed. This is articulated by small Tuscan columns.
