Cathedral Church Of St Barnabas And Attached Boundary Wall

Cathedral Church of St Barnabas and Attached Boundary Wall

Roman Catholic church, created a cathedral in 1851. Built 1841–44 by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin for John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, and Ambrose Philipps de Lisle. Altered in the late 19th century, 1927, and 1962. Restored in 1933 and around 1990. Built in ashlar with slate roofs in the Gothic Revival style.

The church has a nearly symmetrical cruciform plan with a crossing tower and spire. The composition consists of a choir with an eastern chapel and side chapels, a crossing and transepts, and a nave with aisles and three porches. The east end projects with a central gable featuring three graduated lancets. Side chapels have single lancets to the east and two lancets to the returns, with buttresses to the east. The choir has a round east window with plate tracery and three pairs of lancets to the clerestory. The transepts feature buttresses to the east and very tall triple lancets with quatrefoils above, all with hood moulds. An organ chamber to the north-east has two lancets. The Blessed Sacrament chapel to the south-east has three lancets. A sacristy corridor to the south-east links to the adjoining presbytery. The square crossing tower, in two stages, has a recessed bell stage with two two-light pointed arched openings with moulded surrounds. Above rises an octagonal broach spire with diagonal buttresses containing niches, with single lucarnes between them. The nave has five pairs of clerestory lancets. The west end has clasping buttresses, a moulded doorcase with hood mould and triple shafts, a triple lancet above with quatrefoils, and the aisles have four side lancets and single west windows. Three off-centre porches have moulded pointed arched doorways. The exterior features coped gables with crosses on a plinth, with windows mainly being plain lancets.

The interior features double chamfered arches throughout. Pugin's original decorative scheme was never completed and was further reduced in the late 19th century and 1962. The Blessed Sacrament chapel was restored to Pugin's design by Alphege Pippet in 1933 and redecorated 1971–74 with elaborate stencilled decoration. The choir has an arch braced roof and arcades with quatrefoil piers in three bays, with wooden screens. The east end has a moulded double arch with an octagonal pier. The west arch, flanked by figures in niches, contains a hanging crucifix by Pugin. A crypt with three bays features segmental pointed arches on round piers and contains the tombs of five bishops.

The central east chapel has an arch and screen on each side, with an aumbry, piscina and sedilia to the east, and an ashlar blind arcade at the east end. North and south chapels are similar, without sedilia, all with scissor braced roofs. The ambulatory has three bays with a shrine featuring a figure on a bracket, and a door to the presbytery at the south end. The crossing has an arcaded corbel table with four pointed arched openings above it and a cross beam ceiling. Transepts have stained glass windows with pointed arches into the organ chamber and south-east chapel on the east sides. The nave has arcades in five bays with octagonal piers, double clerestory windows, and a strutted king post roof with collar purlins. Aisles have lean-to roofs and eastern arches. North arcade has three bays with a wooden screen, an arch braced roof with wall shafts and angel corbels, and an east end baldacchino with marble pillars and cusped arch under a gable.

Windows include stained glass designed by Pugin and made by Wailes to the south, and mid-20th-century stained glass by Nuttgens to the transepts. The aisle windows feature stained glass by Pugin. Fittings include a 19th-century square font on round columns, with other fittings from the mid and late 20th century. No memorials of special interest are recorded.

The attached boundary wall, constructed in ashlar with gabled coping, borders Derby Road and North Circus Street. It measures approximately 60 metres by 40 metres.