Catholic Church of Our Lady and St John the Evangelist with attached Presbytery, Sudbury, Sudbury, Suffolk

Summary

A Roman Catholic church constructed in 1893 to the designs of Leonard Stokes, with an earlier attached presbytery.

Description

A Roman Catholic church constructed in 1893 to the designs of Leonard Stokes, with an earlier attached presbytery.

MATERIALS

The church and presbytery are both constructed of red brick with some bands and dressings of limestone and the roofs are covered in Welsh slate.

PLAN

The building is not traditionally oriented and the references below refer to liturgical compass points (so that the altar is described as being in the 'east'). The church has a nave and chancel with a tower, porch and narthex on the north side. The presbytery and parish office are interconnected with the church. The hall and other ancillary accommodation are on the lower garden storey of the building.

EXTERIOR

The principal elevation is the liturgical west front which faces onto The Croft. The presbytery stands back from the street behind the tower and the west wall of the nave.

The Church:

The west front of the nave is one bay in width and has a single large window with late free-style gothic tracery rising to a cusped cross at its apex. The Flemish bond brickwork is differentiated by bands of limestone at the sill and springing point of the window, and then with gathered emphasis towards the suggestion of a gable around the parapet.

The tower rises in three stages with bands and dressings of limestone. The ground floor contains a porch with a two-light window on the return elevation. The entrance, facing The Croft, is through a splayed and panelled ogee archway, above which are sculptural niches containing terracotta statues of Christ in Majesty flanked by Our Lady and St John. The upper stage of the tower has highly considered stone detailing: subtle vertical elements rise upwards through repeated horizontal bands laid with diminishing intervals; the weather mouldings around the corners and the embrasures of the parapet are curved and hint at the influence of the aesthetic movement. Rising through the top of the tower is an octagonal lead-covered bell cupola topped with a needle-like fleche or spirelet.

The south elevation of the nave has projecting eaves and three tall lancet windows. There is a two-light traceried window on the south wall of the chancel. A projecting enclosure with a sloping roof carries a stair down to the undercroft with rectangular windows following the line of the stair.

The east elevation faces the garden and has two large multi-pane casement windows with segmental arches at the level of the undercroft. Above it is an expanse of plain brickwork, differentiated by a pattern in darker brick showing the silhouette of a cross on Calvary.

The north elevation of the nave and chancel is only visible from the garden and features a lancet window and a two-light traceried window respectively. There is a tall porch sheltering a bell above the undercroft door.

The Presbytery:

Connected to the tower and the liturgical north side of the church, the Presbytery is of red brick construction laid in Flemish bond with a single band of gault brick at the height of the upper lintels. The roof is hipped and covered in Welsh slate. It is two storeys high above a tall basement that connects to the rear garden, and is two bays wide. The principal feature of the front elevation, facing The Croft, is a wooden porch, classically detailed with leaded side windows.

The rear elevation faces the garden. This view also shows some of the overlap between the two buildings: a 'domestic' upper window on the left hand side is directly above the ecclesiastical masonry that once formed the east window of the Lady chapel. Next to this window is a stone plaque bearing the inscription: 'AND YOU SHALL BE HATED BY ALL MEN FOR MY NAME'S SAKE. MATT. X. 22'. At the level of the garden there is a long lean-to conservatory. All but one of the five domestic window openings has been replaced with later glazing: the lower right-hand window retains its original two-over-two timber frame.

INTERIOR

The Church: the porch beneath the tower has a coffered pine ceiling and there is a stone stoup set into the wall beside the doorway. On the liturgical south side a blocked arch formerly connected into the body of the nave. In the space once occupied by the Lady chapel there is now a 1981 staircase which wraps around a confessional as it rises to the gallery.

Within the sanctuary the north and south walls have been panelled in the later C20 but retain two original elements: an aumbry for holy oil on the south side and a stone piscina on the north. The altar, ambo, presidential chair and tabernacle plinth are all designed by Donald Simpson and date to 1993, they are made of Cumberland slate and have been carved and gilded with liturgical symbols. There is a matching font in the nave.

The un-aisled nave is four bays long and lies three steps below the level of the sanctuary which is separated from it by a chancel arch. There is no fixed seating or stained glass. The windows are simple leaded lancets set within broader arched reveals. The two western bays of the nave are taken up by the raked gallery which cuts across the west window. The front of the gallery reuses the former altar rails as a balustrade. On the south side of the nave is a staircase lit by cusped single-light rectangular windows that leads down to the parish hall below.

The parish hall and the other ancillary spaces at basement level have been adapted in the later C20 or early C21.

The Presbytery: Now interconnected with the church and serving in part as parish office and sacristy, the original domestic plan survives around the staircase and in the first floor rooms. Some elements of C19 joinery survive in the stick balusters, handrail and steps of the staircase, internal doors, and windows.

History

England’s many medieval churches had been built for a Roman Catholic mode of worship (the Latin rite). Elizabeth I’s 1559 Act of Uniformity rendered them all part of the Church of England and outlawed the Catholic Mass. The following two centuries imposed upon a diminishing minority of Catholic worshippers in England severe civil inequalities, public suspicion and periods of outright persecution. Aside from a small number of private chapels and foreign embassies, there were very few buildings dedicated to Catholic worship.

The Second Catholic Relief Act of 1791 permitted the first new generation of Catholic places of worship to be built in England and Wales since the Reformation. They were forbidden to feature bells or steeples and were typically small, classically or domestically detailed, and were often hidden or set back from public view. The 1829 Act of Emancipation removed most remaining inequalities from Catholic worship and was accompanied by a growing architectural confidence.

The revival of Catholic worship in Sudbury began in the 1870s when mass was said at the Union Workhouse. In 1876 the front parlour of two cottages were converted for use as a chapel opposite All Saints' church, with a priest travelling from Lawshall. In 1880 a resident priest was appointed, Fr Valerius d'Apreda. He began by renting and in 1882 purchasing a symmetrical pair of semi-detached mid-Victorian houses on the Croft, which he called St Joseph's Cottage. Fr d'Apreda installed a large aedicule externally housing a figure of St Joseph and opened up the ground floor to create a chapel.

The weight of anti-Catholic feeling in Sudbury at that time appears to have taken a toll on Fr d'Apreda, who installed a plaque on the west wall of the presbytery reading 'and you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake (Matthew: 22)'. He was replaced in 1891 by the Rev. William Fippard who launched an international appeal for funds to build the present church. The foundation stone was laid in 1893 with the new building occupying the site of the northern half of St Joseph's Cottage, while the southern half was retained as a presbytery.

The new church, designed by Leonard Stokes, was completed within six months by local contractors Grimwood and Sons. It consisted of a nave and chancel with a Lady chapel on the (liturgical) north side and a tower with a spirelet at the north-west corner. At the west end of the nave was an organ gallery. To the rear of the site the land drops significantly down to the River Stour and a lower storey was created originally to house a large sacristy beneath the chancel and latterly functions as a parish hall.

When first completed the (liturgical) east end of the church had a reredos with flanking dossals, probably designed by Stokes, the altar was against the wall and brass rails separated the sanctuary from the body of the church.

Fr Fippard died in 1895, aged 32. His successor, the Rev. Augustine Peacock, constructed a small schoolroom at the bottom of the garden in 1901 that was replaced by a permanent building on a separate site in 1909.

Following the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) the church was reordered so that the altar rails were removed, along with the pulpit, and confessional. Wider plans for the enlargement or complete replacement of the church building were also considered but set aside. In 1981 the capacity of the church was increased by the creation of a new gallery at the west end of the nave. The work required the replacement of the original organ gallery, and the insertion of a staircase into the former Lady chapel.

On the centenary of the church in 1993 it was solemnly dedicated by Bishop Alan Clark of East Anglia. At the same time a new altar, ambo, presidential chair, font and tabernacle plinth were installed, all made of Cumberland slate to the designs of Donald Simpson. Two years later, acknowledging the centenary of the death of Fr Fippard, the group of three statues over the west door was added, reportedly sculpted by Sister Concordia Scott OSB of Minster Abbey (1924-2014, significant works by the same artist can be found in Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey).

In 2021 the uppermost stage of the tower was repaired with the replacement of some badly eroded areas of stonework.

Leonard Stokes (1858-1925) was articled to SJ Nicholl, whose practice specialised in the design of Roman Catholic churches. He later worked as a clerk in the office of GE Street, and as an assistant to Bodley and Garner, among others. Over his long and productive career many of his commissions were for Roman Catholic churches and religious institutions, as well as educational and public buildings. Amongst his most notable buildings are the Church of St Clare, Sefton Park, Liverpool (Grade I, 1205333), All Saints’ Pastoral Centre, London Colney (originally All Saints’ Anglican Convent, Grade II*, 1295615), and the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Georgetown, Guyana. Stokes’s office provided work for a number of notable architects included Louis de Soissons, and Albert Richardson. He served as president of the Architectural Association, and in 1910-1912 was president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). He was awarded the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 1919.

Reasons for Listing

The Church of Our Lady and St John the Evangelist, Sudbury, a Roman Catholic church constructed in 1893 to the designs of Leonard Stokes, with an earlier attached presbytery, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as the work of Leonard Stokes, a highly significant architect of the late-C19 and early-C20, also responsible for the Church of St Clare, Sefton Park, Liverpool (Grade I, 1205333);
* for the high quality west elevation facing onto the Croft, with its banded masonry, free-style Gothic tracery, and bell tower.

Historic interest:
* as the physical legacy of the nationwide growth in the Catholic community during the C19.

External Links

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