Church of St Raphael the Archangel

Church of St Raphael the Archangel

This brick and concrete church has a rectangular plan with a layout organised according to liturgical rather than cardinal points. The building comprises a west end narthex, a separate baptistery, a nave, a crossing beneath a dome 13.7 metres (45 feet) in diameter with clerestorey lighting, storeyed transepts reached by spiral staircases, and an east Blessed Sacrament chapel. The altar stands beneath the dome in front of the chapel. Entrance halls are positioned at either end of the north wall, with sacristies, confessionals and WCs arranged along the south side.

The exterior is flat-roofed with brick walls and concrete coping. A large, low inset concrete dome sits on a clerestorey drum with concrete mullions and tie rings, set on a raised brick square with moulded concrete coping and projecting concrete rain-water spouts. The north side features a long entrance colonnade with eight segmental concrete arches. The circular columns are of textured concrete sections with mosaic tiles inset into the heads and bases, standing on a narrow cobbled strip. The first and eighth bays each contain a timber double doorway with glazed overlight and side lights. The second to sixth bays have concrete panels of dalle de verre glass, each divided into three by narrow concrete mullion fins, with timber panelled glazing (now painted over) in the seventh bay. Upper, flat-roofed transepts project to both north and south sides; the northern transept displays a concrete panel of abstract forms, which replaces the original mural of St Raphael the Archangel with Tobias by Pilkington's Tiles Ltd, damaged by inclement weather. The west end narthex and adjacent baptistery are lit by a full-height glazed screen with narrow concrete mullion fins and a central glazed double doorway opening into the narthex. A doorway beneath a covered walkway attached to the adjacent presbytery provides access to the church from the right-hand end.

Inside, side colonnades of circular piers feature an inset frill of fluting at top and bottom with shallow segmental arches between them. The upper transepts have flat lintels each supported by two similar piers and are reached by spiral staircases with plain metal balustrades. The east Blessed Sacrament chapel is screened by high metal railings and gates, painted white. The island altar is of black and white marble with matching marble altar rails to the front, standing on a plinth of three shallow steps; the chapel altar is of grey and white marble. The baptistery contains a tall circular white stone font.

The north wall of the nave is dominated by a full-height screen of intensely coloured dalle de verre stained glass by Pierre Fourmaintraux depicting scenes from Tobias and the Archangel Raphael. Inner plain-glazed screens to the narthex and baptistery allow light into the nave, while the island altar is lit by a corona of light from the dome clerestorey. Above the colonnade piers and over the baptistery and narthex screens are fourteen ceramic Stations of the Cross designed by Alan Boyson for the building. Two ceramic water stoops in the east entrance hall and a similar water stoop on the south wall of the nave are also by Boyson. Suspended from the centre of the crossing dome is a large rectangular pendant light of twenty-two lights mounted in polished diamond plates fixed to a tubular frame designed by McGloughlin of Dublin to the architect's ideas. Contemporary chandeliers hang over the nave with white glass shades. The simple bench seating features carved roundels and is also contemporary.