ARCHITECTURE   OF   ST   MARK'S   CHURCH

The Architect chosen for the Church of St Mark was Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878), and work commenced on St Mark's Church early in 1843.  Scott was one of the most prominent of Victorian architects and his works include the Martyrs' Memorial at Oxford (1841), the Albert Memorial (1862-3), St Pancras Station (1865),  and Christ Church, Swindon.

Built out of rock-faced snecked limestone in the Decorated style, which originated in the 14th century and is  characterised by ornate windows with curved and pointed arches and complex vaulting.  Scott's favourite motif in church design - 'a large chancel with the East window of the chancel taking up nearly all of the East wall, with a panelled roof, supported by an elaborate cornice' - is a prominent feature of St Mark's.  The steeple is 140 ft high, and the roof is covered by Welsh slates.  The interior of the church has an open hammer-beam roof on carved corbels.  It has three-bay chancel moulded arcade on keeled columns and circular abaci, with a wagon roof of four bays on covered wall plates with corbel brackets.  There is an octagonal pulpit, and a font with suspended oak cover spire.  A Toledo coffer, highly carved on arcaded base (dated 1543) is at the back of the church. In 1985 to mark the 150th anniversary of the Great Western Railway Works, and to commemorate the many years of co-operation between Church and Works, a splendid hanging pyx. The East window was designed by Travers in the late 1940s as a memorial to a former Vicar of St Mark's Church.   The  Lady Chapel window  designed by Kempe.  See also the West window, windows in the aisles and the Baptistery window.