Roman Catholic Church of St Mary, Woolhampton, West Berkshire

Summary

Roman Catholic church of 1848, built to the design of George J Wigley, simplified and re-ordered in the later C20.

Description

Roman Catholic church of 1848, built to the design of George J Wigley, simplified and re-ordered in the later C20.

MATERIALS: locally fired brick with Bath stone dressings, under a slate roof.

PLAN: the main entrance is at the west end with a bellcote above, rather than a tower. There is an aisled nave connected by a southern passageway to the sacristy and the sanctuary lies at the east end flanked by side chapels.

EXTERIOR: the walls are built of red and blue (vitrified) brick laid in header bond over a brick plinth with stone capping. The tall, five bay west front has stepped buttresses that flank the central bay. The main entrance has a four-centred stone archway and recessed porch, supported on corbel brackets and a machiolated cornice. Above, there are stone panels inscribed with the coat of arms of the Plunkett family, with the motto ‘Festina Lente’ (‘More haste, less speed’) beneath a three-light, lancet window, enclosed by a stone Tudor arch. Above, there is a small lancet window and a bellcote with triangular pediment and stone detailing. The flanking bays have angled buttresses and contain two lancet windows in stone architraves. The north side has a single lancet and the south side, a carved stone plaque.

The side and rear elevations are more simply treated having small, paired lancets divided by stepped buttresses. The nave is of five bays; the chancel of two. The east window has five lancets within a stone architrave. The aisle and main roofs are separated by three courses of brick, with the upper course moulded. The passageway and sacristy are located within a wing to the south side which has diagonal buttresses and small pointed windows with leaded lights.

INTERIOR: the chamfered chancel and aisle arches are pointed and stand on moulded capitals and octagonal piers. The nave and chancel ceiling have pierced, Tudor style, timber trusses resting on stone corbels.

The sanctuary and side chapels have painted panels (formerly the reredos), depicting scenes from the life of St Benedict, by Gabriel Pippet, 1913, which are Pre-Raphaelite in character. The stone altar is late C20. The east window is by William Wailes and depicts the Crucifixion with Our Lady and St John. In the lower panels there is frieze showing the instruments of the Passion and the pelican, (a symbol of Christ). The stained glass has initial ‘W’ for Wailes. The east windows of the flanking chapels are by Hardman and include a depiction of the Annunciation, guardian angel and a Santiago de Compostela pilgrim. The chapels also contain stained glass recording the Marian years of 1950 and 1986 (the latter with glass by David John). The small window in the north wall depicts St Joseph.

The nave windows have stained glass of the devotional type and at the west end, there is a marble relief carving of the Madonna and Child, which is Italian Baroque in character. On the south wall there is bronze, depicting a seated figure holding keys. At the west end there is a later timber vestibule, surmounted by a gallery and organ.

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. 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 AWN 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.

The Church of St Mary, Upper Woolhampton, is located on the site of Douai Abbey. The land was once part of an estate owned by the Plunkett family, which was broken up in 1786. The family left their chaplain an endowment of a strip of land of nearly seven acres, intended for the purpose of establishing a Catholic mission. In 1903, the Benedictine community of St Edmund at Douai in France, was expelled as a result of the new French Association Laws. The community came to Woolhampton at the request of the Bishop of Portsmouth and they purchased the wider property in 1909, establishing Douai Abbey.

The site for the Church of St Mary was given in 1846 by Arthur, Earl of Fingal. The development of the church was promoted through the efforts of Canon Dambrine, who served at the mission from 1829 until his death in 1855. He is commemorated by a tablet to the north of the chancel. The architect was George Jonas Wigley (1825-1866) and the design is thought to have been based on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s chapel at Croydon. Wigley studied for a diploma in architecture at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and was a pupil of the architect J J Scoles (1798-1863). The Church of St Mary is thought to be Wigley's only executed design in England. He is known to have competed unsuccessfully against A W Pugin for the design of the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Cork, and his only other known completed work is the Church of San Alfonso in Rome (1855-1859).

Wigley was a person of some significance within the Catholic Church, being a founding member of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, now an international charitable organisation of Catholic laymen and women. He was also the founder of the Universe, a Catholic newspaper whose original purpose appeared to be to defend papal claims against those of the revolutionaries. He was knighted by Pope Pius IX and died in Rome in 1866, having contracted a contagious disease while attending the sick.

The Church of St Mary was opened by Bishop (later Cardinal) Wiseman on 11 May 1848. Until the building of the adjacent Abbey Church (started in 1928), the Church of St Mary served as the abbey church, parish church and as a school chapel. In 1913 a new, red alabaster high altar was installed, to the designs of S Pugin Powell.

The Church of St Mary was renovated in 1974 to provide a place focused on parish worship. Around this time, the corbel figures of Adam and Eve to the west front were replaced by plain corbels which are thought to have come from Reading Abbey. The interior was also adapted and simplified by J J Frame of Sussex to conform to post-Vatican II liturgical practice which included the removal of the 1913 high altar and the creation of a baptistery in the former Lady chapel. The reredos was removed and its painted panels have been redistributed within the sanctuary. A new stone altar was added in 1995 and the font was moved back to the west end. A timber vestibule has also been added to the west end which supports the organ above. The church was re-consecrated by Bishop Crispian Hollis on 21 June 1995.

Reasons for Listing

The Roman Catholic Church of St Mary, Upper Woolhampton, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as good quality mid-C19 Catholic Church with a tall and impactful west front, decorated with Tudor detail and surmounted by a pedimented bellcote;
* although reordered and simplified internally, it retains its structural form along with elements of the reredos and good quality stained glass by Wailes and Hardman.

Historic interest:

* it is probably the only example of the work of George Jonas Wigley in England, who was an important and influential figure within the Mid-C19 Catholic Church.

Group value:

* functional and visual association with other listed buildings at the Douai Abbey site, including the late-C19 school hall (Grade II) and the early C20 Douai Abbey (Grade II*).

External Links

Historic England Listing

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