Church of St Osmund and linking range to presbytery

Church of St Osmund and linking range to presbytery

A Roman Catholic church and adjoining range, built 1853-5 to designs by Thomas Gibson of Newcastle, with decorative painting of the roof structures by a church decorator identified as Mr Henderson. The building was reordered in 1981 and refurbished in 1990. It is designed in the Early English style.

The church is constructed of regularly coursed local sandstone with a pitched roof of graduated Lakeland slate, stone coped verges, triangular water-tables and a sill band. The plan consists of a nave and sanctuary in one space, with a south porch and a linking range extending from the south wall of the sanctuary to the presbytery.

The exterior has windows and doors with hoodmoulds, mostly finished with foliate stops. The east end features angle buttresses and triple stepped lancets with a continuous hood mould and head stops. At the apex stands a small triangular light surmounted by a stone cross finial. The sanctuary is further lit by a pair of small timber-framed roof dormers. The body of the church comprises four bays separated by stepped buttresses; the three bays of the nave are pierced by paired lancets, while the single bay sanctuary has a single lancet. A single-storey stone-built range with a pitched roof and a three-light pointed arch window links the church to the presbytery. The west porch is buttressed and gabled with a steeply pitched roof surmounted by a stone cross finial and a wide pointed-arched entrance with engaged columns. The buttressed west end displays a pair of lancets with a small triangular window above, and contains a single bellecote with a cross finial.

The interior presents a high and open space with plastered walls and a carpeted floor, beneath which the original floor surface is considered to remain. The high arch-braced roof of eight bays is carried down low onto the nave and sanctuary walls, where the trusses rest on carved and painted stone corbels. The roof is arranged in three tiers with a small-scale decorative scheme of painted, coloured motifs. Above the nave are floral decorations, HIS symbols, a crowned MR, fleur-de-lys and crosses. The sanctuary decoration is richer, featuring emblems of the Passion and the Four Evangelists. The purlins all have black letter inscriptions, chiefly 'ora pro nobis' (pray for us), with a large variety of imprecations. The sanctuary retains original panelling to the lower walls, and elements of the dismantled timber reredos remain: these include the ornate Gothic altar (brought forward), a pair of free-standing canopied timber saints and an ornately carved and intricately detailed ogee tabernacle with ornate brass doors. The original octagonal stone font also remains. The windows of the nave and sanctuary contain a full complement of stained glass by John and Joseph Gibson of Newcastle; the glass is patterned throughout except for the east window, which depicts the Risen Christ flanked by St Osmund and St Thomas Aquinas, and the triangular west window, which shows an angel holding a shield bearing the HIS symbol. The nave benches are considered to be original, with L-shaped and rectangular ends. The link to the presbytery has a similarly painted roof to the church, with the ridge piece, rafters and wall plate decorated with small foliate and geometric painted motifs, and the purlins decorated with text from the Roman Missal.

The presbytery and wall attached to its south-west are excluded from the listing.