Holy Family Roman Catholic Church, Calder Road And Hope Street, Mossend, Mossend and Holytown, North Lanarkshire

Description

Pugin and Pugin, 1884; church hall 1868. Rectangular-plan Gothic parish church with cusped windows, lean-to side aisles, truncated tower and semi-octagonal baptistery. Roughly square-plan presbytery with shouldered, mullioned windows and link corridor to W of church. 1868 L-plan church hall to N of church comprising former presbytery, church and school.

CHURCH: 6-bay nave with lean-to side aisles to N and S; slightly lower chancel outshot to W; principal entrance to E gable with truncated tower to left and semi-octagonal baptistery to right. Coursed bull-faced cream sandstone with polished ashlar dressings. Base course, eaves course. Nave bays divided by shouldered buttresses. 3- light trefoil-headed windows to side aisles; 3 quatrefoil clerestory lights to each bay of nave. 2 trefoil-headed lights to each side of chancel; large hoodmoulded rose window to chancel gable composed of cinquefoil lights with row of 5 quatrefoil lights below. 2 2-leaf timber-boarded entrance doors with strap hinges in hood-moulded pointed arch architraves with traceried lights to tympanums; small window between doors. Hoodmoulded, traceried, pointed arch window above with trefoil-headed lights flanking to each side. Truncated tower to left with 2-stage semi-hexagonal stair tower advanced at corner. Piend-roofed baptistery advanced at left corner with pointed-arch windows.

Diamond-pane lights with some stained glass. Ashlar-coped skews with gableted ends, bracketed skewputts and Latin Cross finials. Graded grey slate with decorative ridge tiles. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: narthex with terracotta tiled floor; half-glazed 2-leaf timber boarded doors in pointed-arch architraves to nave and side aisles; decorative brass door furniture. Organ gallery over narthex with quatrefoil timber front panel. 6-bay nave with middle-pointed arches on round columns to side aisles; roof trusses resting on bracketed sandstone corbels; stencilled painted quatrefoils to ceiling. Marble steps and floor to chancel; very ornate white marble or polished Caen stone high altar reredos with gothic pagoda over red marble tabernacle and flanking relief panels depicting the Annunciation and Flight into Egypt; statues of Our Lady and St Joseph in gableted niches to each side; marble lectern; stencilled ceiling to chancel. Sacred Heart Altar with decorative marble reredos to left of chancel; Lady Altar with decorative marble reredos to right of chancel. Timber-fronted confessional in arched recess in N aisle.

PRESBYTERY: 2-storey and attic, 3-bay, roughly square-plan piend-roofed presbytery. Bull-faced snecked sandstone with polished ashlar dressings. Base course; eaves cornice; blocking course. Transomed and mullioned multi-light windows with principal elevations in moulded surrounds to front elevation; chamfered window margins to sides and rear. 2-leaf timber- panelled front door in shouldered architrave with hoodmoulded shouldered fanlight to centre of S elevation; slightly advanced bay to left with tripartite windows to both floors; bipartite windows to right hand bay. Service outshot to N (rear) elevation; link corridor adjoining E elevation. Fenestration arranged in bays to sides and rear. Gableted dormers to attic.

INTERIOR: half-glazed timber-panelled lobby door with side lights. Half-glazed timber-panelled interior doors with engraved glass to principal ground floor rooms. Decorative cornicing throughout. Timber staircase with turned balusters and decorative Glasgow-style newel. Plate glass in timber sash and case windows; non traditional timber windows to rear. Rendered wallhead stacks with red clay cans. Graded grey slate roof.

CHURCH HALL. 1868. L-plan with gabled roof. Long range comprising 2-storey, 2-bay former presbytery with piend-roofed dormers to front and rear, and 5-bay former church with chamfered pointed-arch lights and gabled porch in re-entrant angle. Slightly taller 2-storey former school building at right-angles to N with hoodmoulded windows to E gable.

INTERIOR: turned timber stair with cast-iron barley-twist balusters, and some plain cornices to presbytery. Former church and school modernised. Predominantly non-traditional glazing. Rendered ridge stacks with short clay cans. Ashlar-coped skews. Graded grey slate.

BOUNDARY WALL AND RAILINGS: to S and E of site. Ashlar-coped bull-faced sandstone boundary walls with 20th century railings.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical Building in use as such. The church stands at the corner of Hope Street and Calder Road with its entrance on the latter; the Presbytery is on Hope Street and the church hall on Calder Road. The church is an important example of the early work of Peter Paul Pugin for the Archdiocese of Glasgow, and is of considerable streetscape importance as it stands on one of the main roads leading into Mossend. There are very few other buildings of much architectural merit in Mossend.

The earliest building on this site is the present church hall. This was built in 1868 and comprised a simple church with a small presbytery attached to one side and a 2-storey school building on the other. Following the re-creation of the Catholic Hierarchy in Scotland in1878 there was an increase in church building, especially in the archdiocese of Glasgow, where the Catholic population had expanded rapidly due to an influx of Irish immigrants. The majority of the new churches built between about 1880 and 1904 were designed by the architect Peter Paul Pugin, the main practitioner in the firm Pugin & Pugin. Peter Paul Pugin was the youngest son of AWN Pugin. His elder half-brother, Cuthbert, was also a partner in the firm, but retired in about 1880. After Peter Paul's death in 1904 the practice was continued by his nephew, Sebastian Pugin Powell.

Pugin and Pugin churches tend to be similar in both style and layout. The plan is characterised by a long nave with clear views to a relatively shallow chancel, side aisles terminating with side altars flanking the chancel, and a narthex at the entrance end with an organ gallery above. As here, the entrance elevation usually faced the busiest street, in order to minimise noise disturbance.

Holy Family was one of the earlier churches built by P P Pugin, and was designed with a broach spire that was unfortunately never built. This was not due to financial reasons, but because objections raised by the Church of Scotland led to plans for the spire being refused. Later churches by P P Pugin were usually designed without spires to keep costs down. The interior of the church is very fine, with much of the original furnishings and stencilled ceiling. The altarpieces would have been designed by P P Pugin and are likely to have been carved by R L Boulton or Vickers.

External Links

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