Roman Catholic Church of St Francis Xavier

Roman Catholic Church of St Francis Xavier

This Roman Catholic church was built between 1837 and 1839 to the design of Charles Day. It is constructed of brick rendered in painted stucco, finished in ochre colour, beneath a hipped slate roof.

The building is orientated roughly west to east with a linear plan. The church is Greek Revival in style. Its principal façade faces west onto Broad Street and features a tall Greek Doric portico with fluted columns and piers flanking the central entrance steps. The piers support a triglyph entablature and a shallow moulded pediment above, topped with a gilded cross. The nave is set back from the portico, with the entablature continuing around the perimeter of the building. The north elevation contains a number of blind window openings. At its east end, a single-storey building links the presbytery to the church and contains the sacristy. This connecting building has a triangular brick parapet and three openings under brick flat arches: the central opening contains an eight-over-eight sash window with two-over-two sashes either side.

Internally, the entrance steps lead to a pair of tall panelled doors opening into a vestibule with modern glazed doors. A stair to the north and south of the vestibule, both featuring slim sweeping rails and stick balusters, lead to a first-floor gallery which houses the church's late-20th-century organ and two pairs of simple panelled pews.

The nave is a tall, lofty space with a coffered barrel-vaulted ceiling containing a skylight over the sanctuary. The walls feature pilasters painted in a marble effect with capitals detailed in egg and dart pattern, surmounted by a modillion cornice that runs around the entire perimeter. Around the nave are Stations of the Cross rendered as high relief sculptures in stucco set beneath Romanesque arches. The nave contains oak pews with panelled backs and scrolled ends.

The altar at the east end comprises a central gilded tabernacle with a domed top supported by a pillared drum. The tabernacle stands on a marble altar table flanked by two Ionic columns and is accessed via stone steps with a modern altar rail.

To the south of the main altar is the marble Lady altar of 1920. This features a recessed niche above with glazing and miniature Ionic columns containing the relic of St John Kemble, one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, who was hanged at Widemarsh Common in 1679. Above the relic is a painted fresco of the Virgin Mary. To the north of the main altar is a corresponding painting depicting St Francis Xavier.

At the west end of the church stands the gothic font with gilded trefoil detail and grotesques. The font was relocated from the church of St Denis in Harewood and was originally situated in Chardstock, Dorset. Above it, affixed to the wall, is the parish war memorial listing those who gave their lives during the First and Second World Wars.

A door with console brackets supporting a moulded canopy leads from the south side of the altar directly into the adjacent parish hall to the south. The hall contains a stone moulded fireplace on its south wall and kitchen facilities to the north.

To the north of the altar, through a matching door, is the sacristy connecting the church with the adjacent Presbytery to the north. The ground-floor sacristy comprises two adjoining rooms, each fitted with built-in cupboards. The small room to the east contains a fireplace with simple surround and cast-iron grate. The room to the west, which directly adjoins the nave, has a small stone and marble piscina on its south wall with carved oak surround.