Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady and St Columba and attached gates

Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady and St Columba and attached gates, built between 1957 and the designs of Vincente Stienlet, with re-ordering undertaken in 1968 and 1990 by Vincente Stienlet the younger. The contractor was Stanley Miller. The church represents a fusion of Perpendicular Gothic freely interpreted in a modern idiom, infused with Scandinavian and Art Deco elements.

The building is constructed with a steel frame faced inside and out with thin 2-inch bricks. The roofs are copper-covered, and all doors are of oak with wrought iron handles on the exterior and silvered bronze handles on the inner sides.

The church is oriented north to south (using liturgical directions). It comprises a long nave with narrow aisles, a west narthex and choir gallery, transepts, an apsidal sanctuary, a sacristy, and a mortuary chapel.

Externally, the high-quality thin 2-inch bricks are laid in staggered bond with soldier courses at the sills, lintels, and eaves. The east end features a high apse with full-height slit windows to the sides and tall narrow brick fins rising above the sanctuary roof. The low, shallow transepts have flat roofs and are lit by five tall, narrow lights with an eaves-level soldier course. The south transept is adjoined by a shallow, flat-roofed sacristy, with a shallow, flat-roofed former mortuary chapel to its left, plainly detailed except for a full-height narrow light at the east end. The nave displays exposed brickwork and soldier courses with five tall, wide windows featuring Perpendicular lead tracery, separated by tall brick fins rising from the internal aisle columns. Small single-storey, flat-roofed confessionals project from the centre of each side. The square west tower projects from the centre of the main body, featuring a panel of advancing and receding brick crosses above a tall copper-canopied door recess fitted with oak double doors. A tall bell tower rises above, surmounted by a copper-covered drum with splayed brick shafts and a fretwork of stone louvres. Small windows light low narrow links flanking the tower, leading to square, pyramidal-roofed end pavilions, that on the south side with a door.

Internally, the sanctuary is paved in marble (now largely carpeted) with walls richly ornamented with geometric marble and mosaic panels alternating with narrow square brick pilasters. The original altar canopy with a large black and white marble reredos stands against the east wall, and the original tabernacle sits upon a marble plinth constructed from parts of the original high altar. The original marble communion rails have been reworked around the relocated font to form a baptistry. Additional sanctuary furnishings date from the 1968 and 1990 re-orderings, including a glass font bowl by local glass maker Morag Gordon. Side chapels flanking the sanctuary are similarly ornamented with marble and mosaics, with parts of the original marble communion rails set to the front. The shallow transepts are framed by square, clustered columns in two-tone brick with large formerly exposed brick panels above, now featuring later marble panels. Double oak doors with glazed crosses lead through the south transept to a sacristy retaining original wooden fittings. The high nave roof is plastered with a flat perimeter soffit and a raised central section incorporating a long central panel of repeating octagonal motifs. The floor is finished with coloured thermoplastic floor tiles (now carpeted), patterned in the aisles and crossing, and installed for their acoustic value. Original mahogany benches are arranged in two blocks with a central aisle. The nave has square brick columns supporting the clerestory walls and forming narrow side aisles, with an original confessional with oak boarded doors set to the centre of each outer aisle wall. Hand-carved and painted Stations of the Cross originate from the studios of Ferdinand Stuflessor, Ortisei, Italy. The square brick columns rise above the aisles to frame a 'wall of glass' at clerestory level; the leaded subdivisions are of modern Perpendicular Gothic character with Cathedral glass, graded from blue at the top, yellow in the middle, and grey/white at the bottom. The west end features a narthex screen with double doors flanked by single doors, each with small narrow glazed panels in the shape of a cross. On either side are former confessionals, that to the right converted to a small store. Above is a full-width gallery with an arcaded front housing the prominent organ at its centre. The original baptistry in the pavilion north of the tower contains a stained glass window depicting the Baptism of Christ by John Hardman and Company.

Attached to the north-west corner of the church are original double metal gates flanked by a single gate, the former bearing the name of the church. These gates contribute to the special interest of the building and are included in the listing.