This is a church of some quality that remains largely as built. The materials with which it is constructed have been carefully chosen to harmonize with each other, the spatial proportions are good (except that, probably due to the constraints of the site, the church is rather long and narrow) and the detail is well crafted. And yet it is hard to get excited about the building; it is tasteful but slightly dull.  

Update: The church has been demolished and replaced by a new church, opened in 2008.

The first stone of the church was laid in 1924 and the building was completed some three years later. The joint architects were Joseph Goldie and his partner Geoffrey Ronald Gilbertson Topham. Joseph Goldie (1882-1953) was the son of Edward Goldie.  Topham was articled to Edward Goldie between 1908 and 1911, attended the AA schools and also studied architecture in Italy. He served in the London Regiment and Royal Flying Corps between 1914 and 1918; was in private practice as an architect from 1918 to 1939; and rejoined the army in 1940, dying in 1944. St Dunstan’s Church is included among his principle works (RIBA Biography File).

Description

The walls are faced with coursed Bargate stone and have Bath stone dressings. The roof is covered with hand-made sand-faced tiles. Inside, the walls are of sand-faced plaster with Bath stone dressings. The style is Perpendicular Gothic Revival. The plan of this church remains precisely as built. There is a deep chancel with a sacristy to the south. The long single cell nave is symmetrically planned; it has projecting chapels and confessionals on both sides, and the polygonal baptistery attached to the north is balanced by a vice attached to the south that leads to the west gallery. The west porch is also in its original form. There are elaborately carved reredoses in the sanctuary and chapels, and the stone pulpit and tester at the north east corner of the nave, one of the most striking features of the interior, survives intact.

The church is similar in style to two other churches in the diocese designed by Joseph Goldie in the 1920s, Our Lady and St Peter, Leatherhead, and St John the Evangelist, Horsham.

Heritage Details