Roman Catholic Church of St Thomas of Hereford and attached Presbytery

Roman Catholic Church of St Thomas of Hereford and attached Presbytery

A Roman Catholic church dating from the mid-1830s with an attached Regency style presbytery, both Grade II listed buildings.

The Church

The church is constructed of stone rubble walls with brick heads to the windows and a slate roof. It is rectangular in plan, oriented with its shorter ends facing east and west, with a small porch at the west end. Two single storey lean-to additions are positioned to the north of the church.

The walls are finished in stone rubble, with two courses of red brick surrounding large pointed arch headed windows with 'Y' tracery leaded lights. The pitched roof runs east to west, with a coped parapet gable to the west end featuring a bellcote at its apex. The south elevation, which faces the road, is lit by three large windows. The west elevation has a centrally located pitched-roof porch with a small arched leaded-light window, and directly above it is one of the larger 'Y' tracery windows.

The rear, north-facing elevation is partially obscured by two adjoining lean-to additions with mono-pitch roofs. The western addition, constructed in red brick in Flemish bond, contains the Sacristy and features two round-headed multi-paned metal windows. The eastern addition serves as a rear entrance to the presbytery and has a six-light metal casement window. A brick chimney stack is visible. A single door provides access to the west end of the Sacristy lean-to.

Internally, the church consists of one open space with a staircase leading to a gallery at the west end and the altar at the east end. A Lady Chapel is situated in the south-western corner. The walls are oak panelled to the height of the window cills, which have deep reveals that splay downwards. A twentieth-century suspended ceiling obscures the roof structure.

The porch has a quarry tile floor and wood panelled walls with double oak doors leading into the church. Most of the furnishings, including the altar, pews and lectern, are oak and date to the 1930s, executed in the Arts and Crafts style popular in Catholic churches during the twentieth century. The altar and some statues were created by the Hereford woodcarver and sculptor Charles Victor Gertner (1881-1957). The Stations of the Cross are small stone panels carved in deep relief. Additional statuary was supplied by Belmont Abbey in the early twentieth century. Twentieth-century decoration on the long side walls includes shields depicting the heraldry of notable Catholic families. On the west wall by the stairs to the gallery is a wooden tablet relief carved with the image of St Thomas Cantilupe, created by Dame Joanna Jamieson, a former Mother Superior of Stanbrook Abbey in Worcestershire.

The Presbytery

The presbytery is constructed in brick with a slate roof and is rectangular in plan, oriented with its shorter ends facing east and west. It is attached to the east end of the church.

The principal elevation faces south to the road and comprises three bays, with the central bay narrower than those to the sides and projecting by a half brick depth. At ground floor level, the central bay contains the front door with a fanlight, flanked on either side by six-over-six sash windows. At first floor level, each bay has a three-over-six sash window, with the central one being narrower than the flanking pair. The windows generally have plain stone cills and rubbed brick flat-arch lintels. Four brick chimney stacks, each with two flues, rise through the eastern and western roof slopes. The front door is a twenty-first century reinstatement with six panels.

The east elevation has a door at ground floor level with a single three-over-six sash window above it at first floor. The rear, north elevation has been altered at ground floor level to its east end, where doorways appear to have been partially blocked and converted to three twentieth-century windows under flat brick lintels. A six-over-six sash is positioned at the west end of the ground floor. At first floor level are three windows: a small twentieth-century window centrally, flanked by three-over-six sashes. The older windows here have flat-headed brick cambered arches, differing from the rubbed bricks used on the front and side elevations.

Internally, behind the front door is a large parish room, formerly two separate reception rooms, which retains early nineteenth-century features including two fire surrounds, a recessed arched door surround, a picture rail and skirting. Behind this is an enclosed stair hall with a stick baluster staircase, a kitchen and another reception room retaining a fire surround, dado rail and coving to the ceiling. Nineteenth-century four-panel doors are found throughout. The first floor was converted in the early twenty-first century into a flat for the priest. Otherwise, historic interior features are limited.