Presbytery attached to the Church of St Joseph, Sheringham, Sheringham, Norfolk

Summary

Presbytery of Roman Catholic parish church of St Joseph, built in 1911 to designs by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.

Description

Presbytery of Roman Catholic parish church of St Joseph, built in 1911 to designs by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.

MATERIALS: the walls are constructed of red brick, and the roof has a plain tile covering.

PLAN: the presbytery is L-shaped on plan and attached to the east side of the weekday chapel of the Church of St Joseph.

EXTERIOR: The presbytery is two-and-half storeys in height with a pitched roof gabled to the north and south, and a two-storey projection to the east with an M-profile pitched roof, all with plain tile roof coverings. There are two tall red-brick chimneystacks, one on the ridge of the main roof, and one on the southern ridge of the projection. The walls are constructed of red brick laid in six courses of stretchers, and two courses of headers, similar to the attached Church of St Joseph. All windows and doors have stone dressings, and all windows have a flat-arched stone lintel, central mullion, chamfered sill and two leaded lights unless otherwise stated. The front (north) gable is two-and-half storeys in height with a carved stone cross finial, and a single window to each level, diminishing in size with height; the ground floor window has six mullioned and transomed lights. To the right of the front gable, a red-brick screen wall with a single low crenelation and stone dressings provides access to the side of the building via an ogee arch with a double chamfered-brick surround and stone keystones. The east side elevation has an ornately-carved ogee-arched door surround containing a flat-headed double-leaf timber-boarded door. To the left of the door is a 4-light mullioned and transomed window, and the first floor has two windows. The projection to the left has a shallow single-storey projection to the ground floor with a 6-light mullioned and transomed window and two windows over. To the left of the building, a flat-arched stone door surround with two inflex arches to its lintel (similar to that on the east elevation of the attached church) and containing a timber-boarded door, provides access to the garden store and rear garden. The rear (south) gable has a single window to each of its ground, first and attic storeys; the ground floor window has six mullioned and transomed lights, and the first floor window has three mullioned lights. To the right, the east projection has a 4-light mullioned and transomed window to the ground floor and a window to the first floor. A single-storey arch projects east from the south-east corner, and allows access from the side and provides shelter for the garden store within. The west elevation facing the Church of St Joseph is two storeys in height, with a central ornately-carved ogee-arched door surround (similar to that on the east elevation) containing a flat-headed timber-boarded door with replacement door furniture. To the left and right of the door are single bays of windows, the left ground-floor window having four mullioned and transomed lights, and the bay to the right of the door is one light wider.

INTERIOR: The presbytery contains two sacristy rooms, a dining room, kitchen, scullery and two pantries on the ground floor, a sitting room, two bedrooms and modern kitchen on the first floor, and attics over. The building retains its original two-panel wooden doors and ornate window furniture throughout. The original stair survives with square newel posts and tapered finials, plain stick balusters, and a moulded handrail. The stair hall, priests’ sacristy and servers’ sacristy at the north end of the ground floor have terrazzo floors with a black marble margin, and the priests’ sacristy retains a plain classical fireplace with a marble surround on its south wall. A similar fireplace survives on the east wall of the dining room but with a tiled surround and panelled overmantel. The dining room floor has square oak parquet panels. The kitchen retains a high proportion of two-panelled and half-glazed doors and cupboards to its scullery, pantries, store rooms and back porch. The two first-floor bedrooms each retain a plain classical fireplace with decorative floral tiled surround, and one retains a decorative cast-iron grate. The south section of the attic has timber floorboards and cupboard doors to the eaves.

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. By the 1840s A W N Pugin’s vision of the Gothic revival as a recovery of England’s Catholic medieval inheritance fuelled stylistic debate and inspired new design for both Catholics and wider society. In 1850 Pope Pius X ‘restored’ the role of bishops, cathedrals and dioceses in England, inviting even grander architectural projects.

There was a significant expansion in the numbers of Catholics in England between 1850 (around 700,000), 1911 (around 1.7m) and 1941 (2.7m). This increase was accompanied by the development of a new Catholic parish system in 1908, by the construction of convents, monasteries, schools and social institutions, and by landmark buildings such as Westminster Cathedral (consecrated 1910).

Though the First and Second World Wars had some short-term impacts on the rate of expansion, the boom in schools, new towns, suburbs and housing estates in the 1950s and 60s saw more Catholic churches built in England than at any time since the Reformation. During that period the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) introduced profound reforms to the Catholic church, including architectural changes informed by the Liturgical movement. Key changes include saying the Mass in languages other than Latin, and the reordering of churches to reflect a greater ecumenism and communality of worship.

The Roman Catholic parish church of St Joseph in Sheringham was begun in 1908 and completed in 1935, to designs by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. In November 1894, Bishop Riddell of Northampton observed in his Advent Pastoral that there was no Catholic mission between King’s Lynn and Great Yarmouth, a distance of 80 miles. He proposed to build a new church in the fashionable seaside resort of Cromer, and the Church of Our Lady of Refuge was built in 1895 to designs by George Sherrin. The railway extended to Sheringham in the early 1880s, and in 1906 Catherine Deterding (née Neubronner), whose husband had taken on the ruins of nearby Kelling Hall, gifted Revd Thomas Walmsley Carter of Cromer parish money to purchase a site for a church in Sheringham. In August 1908 a small chapel dedicated to St Joseph was opened by the newly-appointed Bishop Keating of Northampton. The diocesan magazine in January 1909 recorded that the new church was designed by ‘Mr Gilbert Scott, architect of Liverpool Cathedral’ and had seating for one hundred parishioners. The chapel was well attended, and in summer overflowed with holidaymakers.

An endowment for a larger church was soon made by Mrs Deterding; construction work commenced in 1909 and the new church was consecrated on 02 August 1910. Constructed perpendicular to the 1908 chapel, which became the weekday chapel of St Joseph, the new church was two-and-half bays in length. A presbytery, also funded by Mrs Deterding and designed by Scott, was added to the east end of the weekday chapel in 1911. The church was later extended by Scott between 1933 and 1935.

The presbytery was originally listed at Grade II in 1987, when it was included in the List entry for the attached Roman Catholic parish church of St Joseph (NHLE 1152329).

Reasons for Listing

The Presbytery of St Joseph’s Church, Sheringham, built in 1911 to designs by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* for its considered design and craftsmanship;
* for its intact plan form and the high degree of survival of its internal fixtures and fittings;
* for its design by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, an architect of national importance, with a number of listed buildings to his name, some at high grades.

Group value:
* for the strong functional group it forms with the attached Church of St Joseph, which is also listed at Grade II.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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