With Haringey Council, the project restored a locally listed 1930s church façade and shopfronts as part of Historic England’s work to revitalise Tottenham.

St Mark’s Methodist Church is one of Tottenham High Road’s most distinctive landmarks: a locally listed 1938 Art Deco frontage set within a streetscape otherwise defined by late-Victorian and Edwardian commercial vocabulary. Its symmetrical horizontal banding and slender central tower — crowned by a glazed cross — unify behind one composition the earlier 1867 Wesleyan church, a 1960 post-war nave and a parade of ground-floor shopfronts. By 2020 decades of unsympathetic alteration and material failure had quietly eroded the building’s landmark presence and left spalling concrete posing a publicsafety risk below.

Funded by Haringey Council with match funding from Historic England, within the High Street Heritage Action Zone programme, Roger Mears Architects led a multidisciplinary team to repair and re-present the façade and shopfronts of a building that serves a 300-strong congregation, five local businesses and a community centre supporting the homeless and economically vulnerable.

On-site investigation overturned the assumption that the façade was concrete cladding on a steel frame. It proved instead to be a loadbearing composite: inner brickwork with an outer leaf of interlocking precast concrete blocks (100–110mm), with embedded and lintel steels inconsistent but often integral.

The project pivoted from replacement to repair-led conservation: maximum retention of original fabric, minimum necessary intervention.

The team rejected proprietary resin systems that would have erased the building’s texture and patina. Mineral-based mortars in two complementary tones, sponge-finished to match the aged original, were calibrated through sample boards. Works include refurbished shopfronts with concealed LED cornice lighting; new Crittall windows; a bespoke illuminated cinema-style canopy; permeable paving, urban greening and kinetic railings revealing the church’s name at oblique angles; and architectural lighting picking out the Art Deco features after dark. The interventions strip back accretion to unveil the building’s Art Deco intent, safeguarding it as a generous landmark for future generations.

“St Mark’s was one of the flagship projects in the Tottenham High Street Heritage Action Zone — support for local businesses, investment in heritage and public realm, and successful partnership working with a community group really invested in local people. Despite numerous delays and challenges, Roger Mears Architects stuck with us, always displaying conservation expertise, ingenuity, integrity and — crucially — patience.” - Camilla Gersh · Regeneration Officer, Haringey Council (Client representative)

“The value of the façade lies not in pristine uniformity, but in its material richness and accumulated history. Concrete, like stone, carries a designed texture and patina — it should not be erased through over-treatment.” - David Hills · RIBA Conservation Architect & Director, Roger Mears Architects

“The design proposal has been sensitively developed and extensively discussed with officers at pre-application stage. The proposed works will enhance and unveil the locally listed building and its site, and the application is fully supported from the heritage conservation perspective.” - Elisabetta Tonazzi · Principal Conservation Officer, Haringey Council