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Summary

Description

Raymond Unwin; C M Crickmer (site architect), circa 1917. Free-style church, aisled long, low Latin cross with shallow transepts, canted chancel, square tower in S re-entrant angle and low vestry opposite; unaisled westmost bay, main doors on W wall flank canted gallery stair turret; openings square or

round-headed and mostly unmargined; harled, with brick dressings, arches and chancel pilaster strips; W door arches red-tiled. Tower has clock to each elevation and louvred paired round-arched openings to off-set Italianate top stage (other stages unexpressed), pyramidal roof with weathervane. Roofs all with projecting eaves, and covered with concrete tiles; variety of roof forms, facetted, piended or gabled, main roof with jerkin-head at W.

INTERIOR: mostly painted brickwork; round-arched arcades to nave and transepts (N transept temporarily blocked off); segmental-vaulted ceiling with ribbed plasterwork; low octagonal (oak) pulpit; sanctuary raised with exposed brick and concrete facing; blind arcading at E.

Statement of Special Interest

Place of Worship in use as such. This church is a significant part of the streetscape of the planned town of Gretna. The church has a number of interesting decorative features, including the pyramidal-roofed tower with the deep-set round-arched windows, the round-ended east apse and the long low nave with the regular spaced windows. The church sits prominently on a corner of the town and the white harling and the brick margins are distinctive features of the building. The symmetrical west end, with the round-arched entrance doors and the canted central stair tower is particularly eye-catching.

Built in 1916-18, the town of Gretna was constructed to provide housing and community facilities for the workers of the nearby munitions factory. The government was concerned during the course of the First World War that there was a lack of ammunition for the British troops, and it commissioned a large munitions factory to be built. This stretched for 9 miles along the banks of the Solway and produced Cordite explosives. Thousands of workers were brought in from around Britain and Ireland to work at the factory and temporary timber and more permanent brick housing was erected to accommodate the builders of the factory and its workers. The township was designed along Garden City lines, with green spaces surrounding the houses, with a wide, central street with shops and community facilities and other, curving streets. The chief designer was Raymond Unwin, with Courtnay M Crickmer acting as the resident architect. As well as housing, the workers and their families required buildings to provide for leisure and the township included several churches, a dance hall, a school and a cinema. After the war, the factory was dismantled and only a few remnants of it remain.

Raymond Unwin (1863-1940) was one of the most important figures in early 20th century British town planning and was the overseeing architect for the development of Gretna and the neighbouring town of Eastriggs. He advocated high standards of design for social housing and informality of planning. He worked predominantly in England and is perhaps best known for his planning of Letchworth Garden City and Hampstead Garden Suburb.

C M Crickmer, (1879-1971) was a London based architect who was the architect in resident for the designing of Gretna township. He also worked with Unwin at Letchworth and Hampstead Garden Suburb.

Notes and References updated, 2012.

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