page_title: The Ascension, Lavender Hill
section_title: Construction
hierarchical_section_title: The Ascension, Lavender Hill / History / Construction
caption_attribution_description: English: Original plan and elevation drawing of the Church of The Ascension, Lavender Hill, Battersea, London
context_page_description: The Ascension of The Lord, Lavender Hill, is an Anglican church in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, situated on Lavender Hill, in Battersea, South West London. It is thought to be the first church in England dedicated to The Ascension of The Lord. Built to the designs of the architect James Brooks, its foundation stone was laid in 1874, and it was consecrated in 1883.
  The church is one of three in the parish of Lavender Hill, The Ascension and Battersea, St. Philip with St. Bartholomew. The other two are no longer used by the Church of England. St Philip the Apostle, Queenstown Road is now home to the Ethiopian Orthodox Parish of Saint Mary of Debre Tsion, and St Bartholomew the Less, Wycliffe Road is now home to the Greek Orthodox Parish of St Nectarious.
context_section_description: The people of the Shaftesbury Estate, many of them railway workers who had moved from the East End to work at nearby Clapham Junction made it clear that they wanted the Ascension to resemble the churches that many of them had left behind in east London. With that in mind, a significant Anglo-Catholic architect, James Brooks, was commissioned to design what was to be one of his finest churches.
  The foundation stone was laid on 1 June 1874, by John Patrick Boyle, Earl of Glasgow; according to Henry Simmonds in All About Battersea (1882) it was situated "under the altar" of the temporary church.
  It was not long before Brooks soon discovered that he was using too much of the available funds for the foundations of the new church. His clients quickly became alarmed by this unforeseen expense, and  he was subsequently dismissed as architect. His replacements,  J. T. Micklewaite and Somers Clark,  completed the church almost entirely to Brooks’  original specification. The  overspend, however, meant that some of Brooks more elaborate design features, such as the carving of the stone capitals in the nave, the projected tower with steeple, above what is now the south porch, a belfry  and an elaborately carved stone reredos could not be completed.
  Like Brooks' East End churches, the Ascension is a bold, simple design, built of brick. A continuous roofline runs the full length of the building.  The nave is lit by lancet windows  in the clerestory; there are no aisle windows.  There is a narrow ambulatory around the chancel. The arcades are supported by short cylindrical columns, with square capitals, plain in the nave and carved with foliage in the chancel.  The brickwork above the arcades is left bare. Francis Bumpus noted the French  Cistercian influence on the Ascension, and on his  Holy Innocents in Hammersmith, saying that both buildings were "conceived in a bold and vigorous Early Pointed style, recalling such Burgundian examples as Auxerre and Pontigny" and admirably adapted to contemporary requirements.
  The new church was consecrated for worship by the Bishop of  Bishop of Rochester, Anthony Thorold, within whose diocese the parish then was, on 30 June 1883.
caption: Brooks plan for the church, including the unbuilt tower
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