Roman Catholic Church of The Holy Rosary, Fitton Hill

Roman Catholic Church of The Holy Rosary, Fitton Hill

This Roman Catholic church was built between 1954 and 1955 by W & J B Ellis and Partners. The mural on the east wall was created in 1955 by George Mayer-Marton. The campanile was rebuilt at an unknown date. The attached presbytery and link block are not of special architectural interest.

The church is constructed of buff brick with concrete tiles. The mural is a mixed-media work comprising mosaic made from coloured glass smalti and gold leaf tesserae, combined with fresco executed in blue grisaille (single-colour) paint.

The church is aligned north-south, though the description uses liturgical compass points. The building has an unaisled nave. At the liturgical west end (the north side) is an inner entrance porch in the south-west corner, a former baptistery with a small balcony above it, and a north-west lobby serving the north-west door, baptistery and the staircase to the balcony. At the liturgical east end (the south side) is the sanctuary containing the mural, with a small Lady Chapel to its left. Behind the sanctuary are confessionals and two sacristies.

Externally, the liturgical west end faces Fir Tree Avenue. The eight-bay church is built of buff brick in Flemish bond on the east and west gable walls and stretcher bond on the side elevations, which have raking brick buttresses marking each bay. The nave, sanctuary and sacristies are covered by a single double-pitched roof with overhanging eaves and corrugated concrete tiles.

The main entrance is a segmental-arched doorway with timber double doors in the south-west corner, leading onto an external flagged platform beneath a flat timber canopy that connects the church to the free-standing campanile. The square brick campanile has a gabled top with louvres on its north and south sides and a statue niche containing a statue of Mary on the south side. The nave is lit by horizontal rows of steel windows at eaves level on both north and south elevations. Towards the east end of the south elevation, a flight of parallel steps rises to a doorway, now sealed, with the link block adjoining the south-east corner at right angles. The north elevation has a doorway towards its north-west end, now sealed. At the left-hand end, vertical rectangular windows light the Lady Chapel and sacristy. A triangular dormer window in the roof lights the sanctuary.

The gabled west elevation features a tall central window containing a stained glass panel depicting Christ's Baptism, which lights the baptistery. A vertical timber panel separates this from the upper stained glass scene of the Virgin and Child. To the right are paired vertical rectangular windows, now blocked, and a commemorative plaque recording Pope John Paul II's visit to Heaton Park, Manchester. The gabled east elevation has a central doorway, now sealed, with paired steps and vertical rectangular windows on each side lighting the sacristies.

Inside, the walls are of fair-faced brick and the seven-bay nave is articulated with flush pilasters of vertical bricks. The Stations of the Cross that were formerly attached to the walls have been removed. Steel roof trusses are expressed as fins below the roof soffit, with boarded panels between them. The nave, entrance porch and lobby are tiled with square quarry tiles. The west end of the nave has a wide doorway with a segmental-arched head and double doors from the entrance porch on the left side, and two similar segmental-arched openings on the right leading through to the lobby, baptistery and a narrow staircase to the central, first-floor balcony. The former baptistery has a similar segmental-arched opening, later infilled with timber panelling and a single door. The balcony has metal railings and the stained glass window of the Virgin and Child is positioned to its rear. At the east end of the nave is a wide segmental-arched opening into the sanctuary. To the left is the small Lady Chapel, and to the right is a segmental-arched opening leading to the confessionals, one of the sacristies and a staircase. Adjacent to this is a blocked external doorway.

The sanctuary has a slate altar platform floor and a modern forward altar. The side walls are of brick with the foundation stone set into the north wall and a doorway through to the second sacristy. Above is the dormer window lighting the east wall, presently boarded up. The south wall has a shallow segmental-arched blind doorway.

On the east wall stands a mosaic of Christ on the Cross, approximately 7.5 metres high and 5 metres across. Christ is depicted in the straight-legged pose of Christ Triumphant (Christus Triumphans), a type common in 12th and 13th-century Italian art, though the bowed head recalls the Suffering Christ (Christus Patiens) of Eastern Christian tradition. The slender body is articulated through the use of many-coloured smalti, with the bearded head surrounded by a golden halo of gold-leaf inlaid glass tesserae. The figure stands against a deep blue cross with tiles within a bordering metal frame, set against a backdrop of a shimmering golden mandorla (an upright almond shape found chiefly in medieval art enclosing Christ or Saints). Historic photographs show that the fresco blends the figures of Mary to the left and St John the Apostle to the right with an abstract backdrop of cubist shapes, possibly representing a landscape or the night sky and heavens darkening as described in the New Testament. The figures have sinuous poses and draperies. Uncovered trial areas reveal their faces to be intact except where the mosaic haloes have been removed, and a small uncovered area of St John's robes remains visible. The original technique is clearly visible, with incised lines cut into the fresh plaster to set out the design and thin transparent paint layers applied over it.