Church of St Mary (Roman Catholic) Our Lady Help of Christians, Bath, Bath and North East Somerset

Description

JULIAN ROAD
656-1/0/0 (North side)

CHURCH OF ST MARY, Our Lady Help of Christians
Roman Catholic Church
24/06/09

GV II

A Roman Catholic church in a High Victorian Gothic style, built in 1879-81 to a design by AM Dunn and EJ Hansom, with carving by Roddis of Birmingham.
MATERIALS: The building is constructed from limestone ashlar with small areas of rubble and a red plain tiled roof.
PLAN: Rectangular plan and oriented east-west, with a chancel, south lady chapel and north vestry (lady chapel and vestry both have external rubble walling), unfinished nave and a south aisle.
EXTERIOR: The building comprises a high single-storey with coped verges and single stack at the north side of the vestry. The building is of seven bays, with a break between the nave and chancel. The south elevation fronts the street and shows five bays to the nave and aisle with buttresses in two stages marking the window bays, a porch to the west and the lady chapel adjacent to the chapel to the east. There are two-light windows with Decorated tracery of cusped head lights and rose above to the south aisle; above in the clerestory are paired windows, each with two lights, again separated by strip buttresses. The south porch is situated within the western bay of the south elevation and the entry has stiff-leaf capitals, a statue of the Virgin within the gable, and is surmounted by a gable cross. The south lady chapel, also with gable crosses, has a small three-light Decorated window in the south wall, and a large decorated window in the east wall of 3 cusped lights with trefoils above. Lighting the chancel are small single-light windows in the south wall, largely hidden behind the chapel roof, and a large east window of three-lights with cusped roundels above. The north side has a vestry with two light lancets and a modern sky-light inserted into the roof. The north nave has plain paired lights within the clerestory and the west wall is rendered and featureless.
INTERIOR: The interior has a plain wagon roof to the nave, which was replaced c.1950s following bomb damage in the Second World War, while the chancel roof consists of a decorative bracketed bressumer supporting a panelled ceiling. The five bay nave is separated from the south aisle by clustered columns with stiff-leaf capitals and carved spandrel figures of angels. In comparison the unaisled north wall is plain, with the only decoration consisting of five stone panels which were filled by frescoes in 1997. The chancel contains a reredos, by Signor Leonardo, which was brought from Italy, and comes from a previous chapel.
HISTORY: The Catholic parish of St Mary's was established in 1847 with the construction of a chapel, now the hall for the neighbouring Christchurch Anglican Church. The current Church of St Mary was opened on 3 May 1881 by Cardinal Manning, Archbishop of Westminster, and was dedicated to Our Lady, Help of Christians. The church also purchased 5 Harley Street for use as the parish rectory.
The Church was designed by Dunn and Hansom of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and was built by a local builder, Mr Joseph Bladwell, with carving by Roddis of Birmingham. The original plans indicate that the design was never fully executed: the west end was due to be extended to incorporate extra bays, a school was due to be attached to the south side of the Lady Chapel, and a house due to be added to the north of the sacristy. Although none of these were constructed, rough stonework and the rendered west elevation indicate their intended position. Until World War II, St Mary's was situated adjacent to residential properties with a house directly abutting the west elevation of the church. In the Baedeker raids of April 1942, however, some of the surrounding buildings were destroyed and this resulted in the larger grounds that currently surround the church. Although the church itself survived, the bombs damaged the roof and shattered all of the original stained glass. To celebrate the church's centenary in 1981, a scheme of renovation was undertaken which consisted of the relocation of the high altar and the font and the removal of the pulpit and the pews. As part of this scheme of renovation the Italian marble reredos, by Signor Leonardo, was cleaned and restored. In 1985 the eight panels within the reredos, which formerly contained fabric, were filled with paintings of saints and martyrs by the artist John Armstrong. In 1997 the five stone panels on the north wall were filled by frescoes. These frescoes were painted by a local artist, Fleur Kelly and they depict The Annunciation, The Visitation, The Nativity, The Marriage Feast at Cana and The Deposition from the Cross, all painted incorporating details relevant to the local community.

SOURCES
Michael Forsyth, Pevsner Architectural Guides - Bath (2003) 242
Neil Jackson, Nineteenth Century Bath: Architects and Architecture, Bath (1991) 149
http://www.stmarysrcbath.com/content/view/25/41/

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION
The Roman Catholic Church of St Mary Our Lady, Help of Christians is designated Grade II, for the following principal reasons:

* A good quality church built within a dense urban environment by Dunn and Hansom, a notable pair of ecclesiastical architects of the C19.
* An accomplished design executed using good quality materials and demonstrating a high standard of craftsmanship.
* The interior carving by Roddis of Birmingham is of particular note.
Listing NGR: ST7470265533

External Links

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