Our Lady of the Annunciation and Attached Presbytery, King's Lynn, King's Lynn, Norfolk

Summary

A Roman Catholic Church with attached presbytery constructed in 1896-1897 and 1849 respectively. The presbytery was designed by AWN Pugin and the church by JW Lunn who also adapted the presbytery.

Description

MATERIALS: The walls are of carrstone with Bath stone dressings and brick with slate, lead and tiled roofs.

PLAN: The church is not traditionally orientated with the liturgical east end facing west. All directions in the following description of both church and attached presbytery are liturgical, i.e. assuming an altar to the east.

The nave and sanctuary of the church are a single rectangle in plan with the tower set at the north west corner. An aisle runs along the whole north side incorporating a porch and sacristy. The shrine and south entrance are under a single roof along part of the south side. A covered way connects the south entrance to a separate entrance from the street at the west end, leaving an open yard between it and the church. The vestry projects from the north east end of the church and the north aisle to join the presbytery. The presbytery is a rectangular range running north to south along the east end of the church and vestry with a kitchen extension projecting from its north end.

EXTERIOR:
The west front to London Road has a central pointed doorway with a wide four-light pointed window above with cusped tracery at the top and a pair of small cusped windows in the gable head. To the right of the main front is a modern carrstone wall with a pointed doorway providing access to ancillary facilities added in 2010. A slender tower with a pitched tiled roof supporting a spirelet clasps the north west corner of the nave.

The north aisle runs between the tower and the two-storey vestry at the east end of the church. A pitched-roofed porch is in the centre of the aisle. The aisle has a mixture of double and single light windows with alternating double and single lights in the clerestory. A projecting stone marker at the east end of the clerestory indicates the position of the sanctuary. On the south side the Lady Chapel and south entrance form a lean-to against the chancel with the 2010 extension at the west end and a small open yard in the centre. The clerestory has simple pointed arched windows of two, three and four lights at the east end. At the west are three larger windows, all with hood mouldings and more deeply cut tracery, two with double lancets, one with three lancets and quatrefoils above which are probably re-used from the original church.

The vestry has a pitched-roof with a single-bay flat-roofed element joining the aisle and sacristy which is under a small catslide projection from the aisle roof. The north elevation of the vestry features pairs of simple, cusped lancets with a larger mullioned and transformed window with cusped trefoil in the gable above.

The south elevation of the presbytery is of gault brick with stone surrounds to the windows. Above the ground floor canted bay window, added in the late-C19, is a large window containing two late-C20 sash windows with part of the stone surround replaced. In the gable is a small lancet window. The main entrance is recessed in the space between this range and the vestry with a four-pointed arched doorway with timber door. Above is a four-light casement window under a shallow roof with curved sprockets projecting. The east wall is blind and of red brick. A single storey kitchen extension has been added to the north end with part of the garden wall to number 95 London Road incorporated into it.

INTERIOR:
The nave and chancel are a single open space of eight bays with woodblock floor and plastered walls under a continuous open roof with an arch-braced king post structure of composite build. The two easternmost bays form the sanctuary with the rood beam from the earlier church marking the transition. Clerestory windows are set in deep reveals on both sides, the first bay of the sanctuary also featuring an internal window affording a view from the room over the vestry. The three westernmost bays of the south side contain larger traceried windows, the heads of which are partly obscured by the internal face of the wall, suggesting a different construction to the others and their possible reuse from the earlier church. The former chancel east window of the Pugin church contains Wailes’ stained glass in three lancets with the Virgin flanked by St Thomas of Canterbury and St George above the monogram of the blessed Virgin, the arms of the See of Canterbury, and the shield of St George, respectively. In the upper part are three quatrefoil windows with angels bearing relevant quotations from Scripture and a small trefoil with another monogram.

The nave is furnished with simple, plain wood open-backed benches of late C20 throughout with an octagonal stone font from Pugin’s church at the west end. It has quatrefoil panels on each face of the bowl; a lamb and flag on the south face, a stylised cross fleury on the north. The main west door is behind a late C20 inner screen door with a simple piscina in the wall adjacent. Above is a late C20 organ gallery with two panels of Lunn’s reredos mounted on the timber gallery front. A doorway to the modern extension was formed in the south wall adjacent to the gallery in 2010.

The north arcade is of five bays, four of which are pointed chamfered arches with simple hood mouldings and shield stops on octagonal stone columns with moulded capitals. The north aisle has small windows set in deep reveals with original leadwork and hopper vents, the north porch doorway with original door and a plain boarded roof on exposed purlins and principal rafters. The easternmost rafter has painted decoration to denote a small side altar behind the arcade respond. This has a gilded timber and curtained reredos. A simple piscina is in the south wall with a timber memorial plaque to the First and Second World Wars above it. Beside the door to the sacristy on the north wall is a brass memorial to Corporal Austin Lewis, killed in action in 1917. The west end of the aisle has been shortened by a late C20 screen with confessionals behind it. This screen protrudes partly across the westernmost bay of the arcade which is a simple arched opening in contrast to the others.

In the sanctuary an aumbry with decorative timber door and vestry door with a painted image of a Pelican in Piety in the tympanum (a relic of the original decorative scheme) are on the north wall. A sedilia with timber panelled back and blind quatrefoil tracery base matching Pugin’s font and a stone piscina with simple cusped head of 1897 are on the south wall. The stone altar with three carved and painted panels on the front is of 1947 (reduced in size and moved westwards in 1969), the stone lectern is of 2011 and the tabernacle plinth 2009. Beneath the altar is the altar stone from the first Mass House in Cottons Yard, Ferry Street, consecrated in 1792 by Bishop John Douglas, the Vicar Apostolic of the London District. Above and slightly east of the altar a timber panel is set high in the roof structure, possibly part of the support for the original tester.

An arched opening in the south wall of the nave next to the chancel step leads to the Lady Chapel, which is also the Pontifical Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. This is a narrow rectangular space with walls of carefully coursed carrstone pieces forming gentle wave-like patterns with a false blocked opening suggested by breaks in the coursing of the north wall. A piscina is set in the south wall. The ribbed, panelled barrel-vaulted ceiling is painted in blue with gold stars and suspended from it are the nine original lamps of the 1897 scheme plus additional C20 ones. The image of Our Lady is incorporated in a neo-Baroque altarpiece by JA Pippet set on an extended step. Two sections of the altar rail remain, and parts of the original carved and gilded screen are incorporated into the current entrance. At the entrance to the shrine is a two light west window with glass depicting the appearance of the Virgin at Walsingham in 1061 and the southern door to the church. This is flanked by brass memorials to the Revd William Poole (d.1867) and the Revd George Wrigglesworth (d.1900) with a painted panel above. A surviving bench from Lunn’s interior scheme stands beneath the window.

The vestry, sacristy and the rooms above them have largely modern interiors except C19 tongue-and grove dado panelling in the sacristy and original windows including a small, leaded, metal-framed window giving a view of the sanctuary from above the sacristy.

The internal layout of the presbytery is largely intact, but with the present front entrance passage to the stair hall and the room above part of the 1897 work. A doorway off the passage leads to the sacristy with a window opposite which was originally external. The stair hall is accessed through a half-glazed door with side lights, possibly the original front door and contains a small, open-well stair with closed string, fielded panels, smooth soffit, stick balusters and heavy, square-section stop-chamfered pendant newel posts. It terminates with a second floor balustrade contained in a C20 partition with fitted cupboards with strap hinges on the landing beyond. The front room has a painted, four-pointed arched fireplace with tiles behind a blocking panel and another in the rear dining room with coved, bevelled mantle set between arched wall niches. A coffered ceiling and canted bay on the west wall are later additions, probably early C20. The first floor is connected to rooms above the 1897 sacristy through a former external window. There are three other fireplaces in the bedrooms, each with slightly different moulding details and some four-panelled chamfered timber doors survive.

History

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. The 1829 Act of Emancipation removed most remaining inequalities from Catholic worship and was accompanied by a growing architectural confidence. A W N Pugin, a major figure in Anglo-Catholic architecture and the Gothic revival in C19 design, promoted a vision of the Gothic revival as a recovery of England’s Catholic medieval inheritance which had, by the 1840’s, fuelled stylistic debate and inspired new design for both Catholics and wider society.

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). The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) introduced profound reforms to the Catholic church, including architectural changes informed by the Liturgical movement and the reordering of churches to reflect a greater ecumenism and communality of worship.

Modern building for Roman Catholic worship in King’s Lynn started with the construction of a chapel in Coronation Square in 1822 by French émigré priest Fr Dacheux. In 1839 a site was acquired on London Road and Revd John Dalton commissioned designs from A W N Pugin. The foundation stone was laid on 10 May 1844 and the new church, initially dedicated to St Mary, was consecrated by Dr Wareing, Vicar Apostolic of the Eastern District, on 8 May 1845. The church initially consisted of a nave and chancel with a north aisle added later and a presbytery built alongside in 1849. The stained glass was designed by Pugin and made by William Wailes, a notable glass maker who established his Newcastle works in 1838 and was associated with Pugin before going on to be a prolific glass maker for ecclesiastical and secular buildings.

Within 50 years of the new church opening its structural condition was such that a report was commissioned by William Lunn (1849-1902), an architect of several Catholic churches including St Edmund, Southampton (1888-89), St Catharine, Chipping Campden (1891) and Corpus Christi, Boscombe (1885-86), all of which are listed at Grade II. Lunn’s report concluded that the existing building should be replaced and the foundation stone for his new church was laid on 29 September 1896 and opened by Bishop Riddell of Northampton on 2 June 1897. The rood, font and some of Wailes’ stained glass were retained from the previous building and the reredos, designed by Lunn and made by Charles Beajart of Bruges. A C19 engraving shows the North Everard Street side of the presbytery, indicating it has survived with the mullioned windows on the ground and first floors changed, and the east chancel window of the original church, suggesting it was reused in the new church.

The new church played an important role in the revival of the shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham, one of the most important pilgrim destinations in England during the later medieval period on which King’s Lynn had been an important stage of the journey. The Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham was established in the new church’s Lady Chapel in 1897 by Fr George Wrigglesworth. The Chapel was built as a replica of the Holy House of Loreto and an image of the Virgin, brought from Oberammergau and blessed by Pope Leo XIII, was installed in the Chapel. The statue was painted by English artist Charles Rock and was based on an image of Our Lady in Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Rome. The altar in the shrine was subsequently consecrated by Bishop Riddell of Northampton on 15 May 1900 by which time the Shrine had been decorated by J.A. Pippet of Solihull, and the altar privileged by Pope Leo XIII.

Following the establishment of the Shrine Fr Wrigglesworth led a pilgrimage from Lynn to Walsingham in August 1897, the first such event since the Reformation. This tradition continued to grow in the C20 and the Lady Chapel shrine at the Church of St Mary remained the official shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham until 1934, when the national shrine was established at Walsingham. At that time King’s Lynn became a pontifical shrine.

The interior of the church was refurbished several times in the twentieth century with the chancel walls given a new decorative scheme in 1923, which has itself since been overpainted, and the sanctuary reordered in 1947, with a new altar introduced, and again in 1969 with the altar moved and a crucifix by Michael Clark installed on the wall behind. The most recent redecoration was in 2014. An organ gallery was installed in the 1990s with pipework from Emmanuel College, Cambridge. In 2010 an extension was built by architect Richard Waite entered from the London Road side and providing a meeting area, kitchen WCs and step-free access to the church. This is also connected to the adjacent house number 95 London Road, a Grade II listed property, the ground floor of which is used as church rooms.

Reasons for Listing

The Church of Our Lady of the Annunciation and the attached presbytery are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Historic interest

* as a good example of a C19 Roman Catholic church with integrated presbytery with a strong association with the reestablishment of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham

Architectural interest

* as a competent design of fine craftsmanship by architect William Lunn, an architect of considerable repute with a number of listed buildings to his name;

* for the incorporation of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham and significant elements from AWN Pugin’s earlier church;

* for the presbytery which is substantially the work of AWN Pugin, a major figure in Anglo-Catholic architecture and the Gothic revival in C19 design.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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