page_title: Church Army Chapel, Blackheath
section_title: Spire
hierarchical_section_title: Church Army Chapel, Blackheath / Design / Spire
caption_attribution_description: North-west elevation of Church Army Chapel, Blackheath, London, England. The spire is now missing, but has been drawn onto the photograph to give a rough idea of what it once looked like. The chapel is built onto a hollow platform or undercroft. The north vertical side of the platform (seen at the bottom of the picture) was invisible in the original 1965 design, as there was a grass slope down from the platform to the quadrangle (which has now been built on).
context_page_description: The Church Army Chapel at Vanbrugh Park, Blackheath, Greater London, designed by project architect E.T. Spashett for Austin Vernon & Partners, opened in 1965 by Princess Alexandra and consecrated by Michael Ramsey, is a locally listed building of outstanding architectural significance, and is notable for originally having had the tallest sectional aluminium spire of its time, and for being one of the earliest 20th-century chapels of modern design to have been conceived with a central altar. It is now part of Blackheath High School.
context_section_description: The concept for the building is embodied in the spire, which was a very tall, slim, hollow aluminium cone at least twice the height of the building again, chosen for its lightness and strength as proved in the aeroplane construction industry – the architect being ex-Royal Air Force. It was made up of a series of overlapping hollow sections decreasing in size up to the final cone-section at the top, like a Victorian hand-held brass telescope, but with the overlaps of the expanding sections reversed.  A small cross-piece through the top cone section doubled as the hilt of a sword, representing the Church Army in the context of such Biblical expressions as "good soldier of Christ". The cross-shaped top was also reminiscent of the capping-crosses of medieval spires like the one on Salisbury Cathedral (see image, below). A slightly similar type of aluminium spire had been added to the top of the Chrysler Building in 1929, allegedly as a surprise in that it created, temporarily, New York City's tallest building. St. Michael's Parish Church, Linlithgow has a controversial "Crown of Thorns" aluminium spire of sectional construction, erected in 1964.
  The spire had a flanged base, mounted on a round plate, then a rectangular plate.
caption: North-west elevation, 2009, with missing spire drawn onto image, and foundation-box visible
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