Church of St Mark Bestwood Nottinghamshire

St Mark’s, Bestwood, opened in 1887 largely to serve an area developed as a consequence of the work undertaken by the Bestwood Coal and Iron Company, founded in 1872. The company built the colliery, the offices, cottages, the school, the ironworks and, finally, the church. The Duke of St Albans gave a piece of land of about half an acre, suitable for a church, close by the school room and the cemetery which he had given to the village in 1885.  The church was built as a mission church and daughter church of Emmanuel Bestwood Park. The church is of cruciform shape with nave and choir under one main roof with a small chancel to the east end. There is a main entrance porch at the west end, which was added a year after the initial construction, and has a lean-to roof, a plastered sloping ceiling with fair-faced brick walls and a stone slab floor. The church roof is of plain clay tiles with gable ends and a fleche at the intersection of the main and transept roofs. The church is of solid brickwork with decorative banding to the eaves and verges. The interior of the church is of a steep plastered sloping ceiling divided into 5 bays by timber arch braced trusses with wrought iron ties and two purlins to each face. The walls are of painted brickwork with a glazed brick dado.

BESTWOOD (NOTTS) - Of late years a colliery village has sprung up at Bestwood, on the estate of the Duke of St. Alban’s. The church is a mile and a half away, and the school is the only building in which a service can he held. A mission church has, therefore, been projected by the Rev. A. S. Hawthorne, the vicar, and it is to be built at once. The Duke of St. Alban’s gives the site and £600, and the Colliery Company gives also £600. A simple brick building is proposed, so planned as to be suitable for lectures and parish gatherings of various kinds. Mr Medland Taylor, of Manchester, is the architect. [Builder 27 February 1886 page 356]

BESTWOOD - For several years past the vicars of Bestwood have conducted Divine Service once on Sundays in the schoolroom at Bestwood Colliery, but the want of a more suitable building has been painfully felt. At length, mainly by the liberality of tbe Duke of St. Albans and of the Bestwood Coal and Iron Company, a mission church has been built, from the designs of Mr Medland Taylor, architect, Manchester, and it was opened on the 7th inst. It is built mainly of brick, with a little stone at the principal doorway, and in the chancel windows. The roof is covered with red tiles. There is a broad nave with transepts, which are to be used more as class-rooms and for secular purposes; but which can, when occasion requires, be thrown open to the nave, and so largely increase the accommodation of the church. The chancel, — that part of it which contains the altar, credence, and altar rail, — is built and arranged as it would be in a more costly and regular church. The choir seats are arranged on a platform, three steps up from the nave, and projecting from the sanctuary into the nave. There is a dwarf screen round, and at the end next the nave is an oak arch, surmounted by a cross. On the one side is the lectern, and on the other the pulpit, projecting slightly from the screen, and entered from the chancel. The choir fittings and the chief doors are principally of oak. In the gable wall of the chancel are two two-light windows, and between them in the centre is a stone altar cross. There is a marble altar ledge above the Lord’s table, and a credence shelf on the side. The chancel windows are filled with tinted glass, in lead work, of a lace-like pattern, with a text in ruby glass at the foot of the lights. The font (as it may occasionally have to be removed) is of oak, pentagonal in form (an ancient form, by the way), standing on an oak platform, that the administration of the Sacrament may be duly witnessed. The seats in the nave are low, open, comfortable benches. In the transepts are convertible seats, usable either as forms and tables, or as church seats with backs. There are two side porches opening into the church and class-rooms. The girls’ and young women’s class-room contains a cooking-range, and a convenient china pantry, with sink, etc., adjoins it. On the other side, the west class-room will be available for use as a choristers’ vestry. Adjoining it is a lavatory and cloak-room. There is a ventilating gabled turret on the middle of the roof, and a belfry on the front gable. When the transepts are thrown open to the nave, so as to use the whole building, there is comfortable sitting and kneeling room for about 360 adults. 'The contract sum for the entire building, fit for use, excepting only the fittings, is £1,250. The builders, working under the architect’s directions, are Messrs Dennett and Ingle, of Nottingham. [Builder 21 May 1887 page 787]

Reference    Builder 27 February 1886 page 356
Reference    Builder 21 May 1887 page 787