The development of the “Paddington Estate” in the early years of the nineteenth century led to the creation of a new parish. In 1826 the Reverend Dr Crane applied to the Church Commissioners to build a chapel. However, the Commissioners’ architect, Samuel Pepys Cockerell, died before his plans for what was known as the Connaught Chapel could be built. Dr Crane’s son-in-law, Charles Fowler, was then asked to prepare new designs for a church.

I was commissioned to carry out the paint analysis of the interior.

The Nave

The Church has been decorated, either wholly or partially, on nine occasions. The majority of the decorative schemes have been applied in variations of stone colour, although blue was employed once in the early twentieth century. The use of bronze paint on the ceiling bosses dates from the last full decoration, which is believed to have taken place in 1966-67. No gilding was encountered.

At noon on the penultimate Sunday in September, the vicar of St John’s Church appears before his congregation on a horse in the well established St John’s tradition known as Horseman’s Sunday.






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