Description

C H Purcell, 1956-9; completed by S Stevenson Jones. Restrained gothic church with aisles, 9-bay nave and apse. Pink brick with cream sandstone ashlar dressings, battered coping to base course; moulded ashlar eaves course. Hoodmoulds to pointed arch windows; geometric tracery. Battered coping to pilaster-like buttresses dividing bays of aisles. Parapet to flat-roofed aisles.

S (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: paired, pointed-arch entrances with deep-set 2-leaf timber doors; tall 4-light traceried window above; arrow slit opening in gablehead; cross finial. Single bay end elevations of aisles flanking at ground, each with 2-light window.

E ELEVATION: 9-bay. Aisle bay to outer left with single light window, penultimate left bays with 2-light windows; 3 bays to centre with lower single storey, coped shallow projection (confessional boxes); bays to right with similarly low vestry projection with flat-roofed single and multi-light windows and deep-set 2-leaf doors. 2-light windows to each bay of clerestorey bar outer left. Battered stack advanced to outer right in re-entrant angle between.

W ELEVATION: aisle bays with regular fenestration except 2 bays to left of centre with lower coped projection with paired single light pointed arch windows. Regular fenestration to clerestorey.

APSE: canted with 3-light windows to flanks and diagonal buttresses dividing; link to presbytery at ground in E-most flank.

Lead, diamond glazing patterns. Grey slates. Gablet skewputts to ashlar coped skews of S gable.

INTERIOR: painted render, barrel-vaulted painted ceiling with ribs and corbelled posts; aisles arcaded with moulded pointed arches on chamfered pillars. Flat, trabeated ceilings to aisles. Furnishings designed by Purcell, including: distinctive steel lanterns lighting nave on timber brackets between arcade arches; 5-part stone altar reredos with 2 tiers of cusp-headed panels depicting saints and part gilded flanking canopied gothic niche, with quatrefoil carved frieze above and flanking colonnette margined panels; altar in Portland stone with 3 gilded mosaic panels flanked by single and paired colonnettes; stone pulpit carved with cusped panels; Our Saviour?s Chapel altar of stone with cusped panels and paired colonnettes and nookshaft flanked 3-part centrepiece with statue of Jesus Christ at centre; Lady Chapel with stone cusp-headed, colonnette flanked altar and 5-part reredos of traceried panels with polygonal shafts flanking and central statue of Our Lady and Child. Octagonal, panelled stone font to Baptistery, panelled timber wainscot behind. Organ gallery over narthex with timber organ cases with billeted coping and gilt grille.

CHURCH HALL: to N of church, cruciform-plan, running NW-SE. Church-like hall with deep red brick base course, harled brick walls; tile coped battering to buttresses. Lean-to aisles to each side with gabled porches/transepts closing, buttresses dividing square-headed windows with quasi-hoodmoulds; clerestorey windows above detailed similarly with timber inset creating four-centre-arched opening. Gabled vestry adjoined to canted apse at SE end. Stone cross finial to NW gable, metal cross finial to apse. aproned, octagonal, louvred ventilator with spirelet roof to centre of ridge. Purple slates. INTERIOR: not seen 1995.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. Purcell was the last surviving member of the practice Pugin and Pugin which dominated Roman Catholic church design for several decades.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17815627

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)