Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Beauchief and St Thomas of Canterbury and Presbytery

Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Beauchief and St Thomas of Canterbury and Presbytery

A Roman Catholic church and adjoining presbytery designed by Adrian Gilbert Scott and built in 1931-32, with sacristies added in 1959-60. The church was the result of a longstanding vision for a permanent place of worship in Sheffield's expanding southern suburbs. In 1908, Bishop Brindle of Nottingham agreed to fund a new church and purchased land in Meadowhead. A temporary timber church accommodating 250 people was opened on 16 June 1910. The Reverend James Rooney initiated a building fund in 1918 for a permanent structure. The foundation stone was laid in 1931, and the church officially opened on 2 June 1932, with the presbytery having been completed in 1928. The builders were Messrs M J Gleeson Ltd, and the total cost was £13,000. The church's dedication recalled the nearby Beauchief Abbey, whose remains were presented to Sheffield Corporation in 1931. Adrian Gilbert Scott (1882-1963) was a notable ecclesiastical architect and member of the architectural Scott dynasty, brother to Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, trained under Temple Moore and specialised in Roman Catholic commissions.

The buildings are constructed in brick with ashlar dressings and hipped Roman tile roofs in Lombard Romanesque style.

The church plan comprises a chancel with apse and vestry, a crossing tower, nave and transepts. The exterior features chamfered eaves and predominantly round-arched windows. The east end has a hipped apse with two small windows, below which is a flat-roofed sacristy and vestry. The chancel has on each side a round-arched two-light window with ashlar shaft and transom under a fanlight. The squat square crossing tower has a pyramidal roof with moulded wooden eaves and a cross finial, with four rectangular clerestory windows under the eaves on each side. The nave has on either side a round-arched two-light window with ashlar shaft and transom under a fanlight, with small windows set low down to the west on each side. The west end features two small high windows and a central ashlar doorcase with cornice and framed panelled double doors, approached by a landing with wrought-iron balustrade accessed by steps with balustrade walls and slab coping on each side. The transepts have a hipped apse to the east and a round-arched two-light window with ashlar shaft and transom under a fanlight to the west, with a door under the window on the south transept. The north and south ends have a round-arched three-light window in the same style. Angled extrusions in the return angles to the west feature single small windows, with below a half-hipped canted confessional with two small windows.

The presbytery, positioned south of the sacristy, has a hipped roof and two large ridge stacks. The windows are mainly margin-glazed steel-framed casements. It is two storeys with a five-window front range, symmetrical frontage, and a late-20th-century addition to the left. The rear has a recessed centre flanked by hipped wings.

Interior features include plain round-arched barrel vaults throughout, with mosaics in the apses depicting the Ascension, Madonna and Child, and the Sacred Heart, designed by George Mayer-Martin (1897-1960) and executed by his assistant Geoffrey Wheeler in 1960-62. The crossing has chamfered re-entrant angles with round arches carried on round piers with Romanesque capitals, and a panelled wooden ceiling with a coffered square wooden dome. The north-east angle contains a doorway to the sacristy, while the south-east angle displays the foundation stone dated 1931 alongside an aumbry and piscina with shaped wooden surrounds matching the doors. The western angles have pairs of panelled partly-glazed doors to the confessionals, all with wooden surrounds and shaped heads. The north transept has a pair of doors with shaped heads to the east, and the south transept has a door to the west beneath the window. The transept niches contain stone altars. The nave features to the west a panelled wooden gallery carried on a bressumer with shaped wooden brackets, supporting a two-tower organ case. Below the gallery is a framed panelled double partly-glazed door with wooden surround and shaped head, with a round-arched doorway to the gallery stair to the left and a round-arched window to the former baptistry to the right. The entrance hall has windows at each end and a stoup. Fittings include a plain octagonal font and late-20th-century altar and lectern; the plain benches have open backs.

Internal alterations were undertaken in 1958, when the original woodblock flooring was replaced with terrazzo. New sacristies and stairs to the organ loft were added in 1959-60, designed by D Wilkinson of John Rochford & Partners. In 1968, post-Vatican II reordering was carried out by John Rochford & Partner, involving removal of altar rails, lowering of the chancel floor level, and installation of a new altar of Ancaster stone. Stone from the old altar was reused for the lectern and tabernacle stand, and the font was relocated to the sanctuary.