Lot Essay
The Church of the Wisdom of God, or St Sophia, Lower Kingswood was designed by Barnsley in 1891 in a free Byzantine style. It actually incorporates original Byzantine elements, including capitals brought from churches at Ephesus and Constantinople. Pevsner, in his Buildings of England (Surrey, 1962, pp. 61, 288-9), rates the building highly , calling it 'as extraordinary as its Byzantine contents', a church 'where the architect cut through the Gordian knot of styles and simply produced style. This is a fresh, unaffected, and extremely religious-feeling building which cannot be pigeon-holed, only appreciated'