St Matthew's Church, Northampton

St Matthew's Church, Northampton is a Church of England parish church in Northampton, within the Diocese of Peterborough. The church is a Grade II* listed building. It was erected (1891–4) in memory of brewer and MP, Pickering Phipps, beside the Kettering Road (now the A5123). The architect was Matthew Holding. Canon John Rowden Hussey was vicar from its consecration in 1893 to 1937. Walter Hussey, vicar from 1937 to 1955 succeeding his father, was a patron of the arts. He celebrated the church's 50th anniversary with a sequence of events and commissions: the commission of the anthem Rejoice in the Lamb from Benjamin Britten; a performance from the BBC Symphony Orchestra (2 October 1943); an organ recital by George Thalben-Ball, and the commission of Henry Moore's sculpture "Madonna and Child". Buoyed by the success of the 1943–44 commissions, Hussey continued to commission new works of art. Other musical commissions included The Revival by Edmund Rubbra (1944); Festival Anthem by Lennox Berkeley (1945), Lo, the full, final sacrifice from Gerald Finzi (1946), and works by Christopher Headington, Malcolm Arnold and others. There were commissions of poetry: a Litany and Anthem for St Matthew's Day from W. H. Auden and The Outer Planet from Norman Nicholson. The recitals continued throughout this time, most notably with two concerts by the singer Kirsten Flagstad In the north transept is Henry Moore's stone sculpture, "Madonna and Child" (1944) and in the south transept a painting of the Crucifixion (1946) by Graham Sutherland. The triptych in the Lady Chapel is by C. E. Buckeridge. A 2009 addition is a bronze statue of St Matthew by Ian Rank-Broadley. A 1956 oil and watercolour painting of St Matthew's Church by John Piper is in the collection of the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery.