St Raphael's Roman Catholic Church
Charles Parker (1799-1881)
1846-48
Portsmouth Road, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey
Photograph and text 2008 by Jacqueline Banerjee.
With the "typically Early-Victorian-Italianate top" to its west tower, this church on the edge of Surrey used to be considered the only "Italian-Romanesque" church in the county (Nairn and Pevsner 332, 62n.). It now comes within the boundaries of Greater London. An active church, it serves as the Catholic chaplaincy to Kingston University.
St Raphael's was funded by Alexander Raphael, a Catholic Armenian whose family came from India. He had been the first Catholic Sheriff of London; he also served as the first British-Armenian MP. The architect too was something of a pioneer: Charles Parker, who had a successful London practice and professional career, was one of the original fellows of the Institute of British Architects (afterwards RIBA) and was later appointed steward and surveyor to the Duke of Bedford's important London estates. But perhaps Parker's main achievement was to have promoted the Italianate style in domestic architecture through his influential Villa Rustica, selected from the buildings and scenes in the vicinity of Rome and Florence, and arranged for rural and domestic dwellings; with plans and details (1832, 2nd ed. 1848). Interestingly, some of the Victorian housing near this church (for example, around St Andrew's Square) has Italianate features.
Note
Details about the structure of the church can be found on the church's own website, here.
Sources
Goodall, M. A. "Parker, Charles (1799-1881)." The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Viewed 2 October 2008.
Pevsner, Nikolaus. The Buildings of England: Surrey. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2nd ed. 1971.
Last modified 6 October 2008.