Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady and St Edward

Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady and St Edward

This Roman Catholic church was built in 1886 to the design of Edward Simpson, in the Romanesque style. The building is constructed principally of red brick laid in English Garden Wall bond with yellow terracotta dressings, and has a clay tile roof.

The church comprises an apse, a chancel with a shallow projection to the north forming a small side chapel, and an aisleless nave. Projecting from the nave are a shallow north porch and a vestry which connects to the presbytery to the south (the presbytery is excluded from the listing). The overall appearance is relatively modest, with elevations divided by moulded red brick string courses at plinth level, just below window sills and at impost levels.

The windows are lancets with simply moulded jambs and more ornate Romanesque round arches in yellow terracotta. The glazing is decorative, with each window featuring leading arranged in blocks of chevrons alternating with square lattice patterns. The roof is continuous over the nave and chancel, extending as a cat-slide over the small side chapel. The gables are stone coped, with a gabled bellcote rising at the west end and a stone cross forming a final to the east end. A tall boiler chimney rises from the intersection between the roofs of the vestry and nave.

The nave comprises five bays with the north porch at the western end. The porch is simply gabled and has a Romanesque doorway of three orders, with the yellow terracotta arch rings featuring dog tooth, chevron, and nail head ornamentation. The planked double doors are hung on ornate strap hinges. The west end is lit by three lancet windows, the central one being shorter but set higher than the others.

The chancel projects slightly to the north where it forms a side chapel, and has triple lancets on both north and south elevations. The apse, constructed in header bond and smoothly rounded, has five evenly spaced lancets.

The vestry extends as a low cross wing from the eastern two bays of the south nave wall. It is lit by two lancets on the east side which break the eaves line and are accommodated by a plain verged gable. The west elevation has a Romanesque doorway.

Internally, the chancel and sanctuary arches are wide, each supported by three orders of stone columns. The three arch rings are decorated with seven bands of Romanesque ornamentation formed in yellow terracotta, including chevrons, nail heads, dog-toothing, billets and diaper patterns. Window and doorway reveals are deep, with round-arched heads also featuring a selection of yellow terracotta ornamentation: those to the nave show variation between windows whilst those in the apse are identically detailed. Just below the window reveals is a billet string course, and a moulded string course links the windows at impost level.

The roof structure is exposed, consisting of arched braced principal trusses supported by shaped corbels, with the common rafters being scissor-braced. The semicircular apse roof has an arch-braced kingpost. There is no division between the chancel and the small side chapel to the north.

The main entrance to the church has a modern inner porch of no special interest. One of the two doorways to the vestry now forms the entrance to a confessional.

The church contains a stone high altar with an arcaded front. A low stone arcade also forms an altar rail beneath the chancel arch. The small side chapel has no fixtures. The nave contains simple oak open-backed bench pews with kneelers. Affixed to the nave walls are the Stations of the Cross, painted panels in round-arched wooden frames. On the west wall is a large framed painted canvas of the Virgin and Child, thought to be a copy of a 16th-century Italian painting.

The nave windows contain blue and purple coloured glass which accentuates the arrangement of chevron and square lattice leading. The only pictorial stained glass in the church is in the three central windows of the apse. The right-hand lancet contains an image of the Virgin and Child, the left-hand one an image of St Edward, in memory of Lord and Lady Herries, the founders of the church. The centre lancet shows Christ's crucifixion and is in memory of Edith Mary Forster. These windows are dated between 1893 and 1919.