The historic St Thomas’ Chapel was reinstated within the south transept of heritage-listed St Matthew in-the-City Church. A sensitive addition that carefully integrates new kitchen and toilet facilities within an iconic church interior.
This 1964 chapel was the result of a 1947 gift from Sir William Goodfellow who gave a sum of £50,000 for the construction of a chapel in memory of his son, Lt Richard Maclaurin Goodfellow, who was killed in 1944 while serving with the Fleet Air Arm.
The building is constructed of reinforced concrete, employing various textured finishes - plain concrete, smooth and fine-textured render, and exposed aggregate - providing a hierarchy to the external elements. The original drawings show a proposal to cover the concrete walls with ceramic mosaic tiles, but this was not undertaken. The existing render incorporates mica flakes that reflect in sunlight.
In 2010 Salmond Reed Architects was commissioned to carry out a building survey inspection of external walls, windows and doors, following the incidence of roof leaks and window deterioration. The roof survey identified a series of common defects and we prepared a report including a range of recommendations split between maintenance measures and repair.
The other major component of the survey was the inspection of the windows located on the opposite east and west sides of the Chapel. Each comprises nine bays of glazing separated by eight laminated timber mullions, clad externally with a 0.15mm thick aluminium foil bonded directly to the timber, with polished timber surfaces continuing internally. This foil was found to be heavily buckled to the long sides of the staggered mullions, most likely resulting from differential thermal movement between the timber and the foil. Other sections of foil were detached due to the failure of the adhesive and thin coat of white paint to the foil (possibly not originally intended to be painted) had also failed, with significant areas of detachment and flaking.
We prepared a Specification of Works which set out Conservation repair practices so that the works could be tendered and carried out by skilled tradesmen to work with the high quality of the original materials and workmanship.
