St Gregory's Roman Catholic Church and Presbytery

St Gregory's Roman Catholic Church and Presbytery

A Roman Catholic church built between 1968 and 1970, designed by Frederick King for the architectural practice Wood, Goldstraw and Yorath.

The church is constructed with a steel frame faced in hand-made red brick with concrete detailing and copper-clad roofs. It stands on the north side of Heathcote Road with a distinctive symmetrical plan form. The main body of the church features a semi-circular elevation creating a fan-shaped nave, with the rounded entrance-front facing south-east. Ancillary spaces are positioned on the north-west side, and a presbytery adjoins the building on the south-east side.

The exterior presents a double-height, round-fronted building with a full-height narthex and single-storey projections, together with single-storey ancillary accommodation at the rear. A wide narthex lobby curves around the south-east front. It features a concrete frontispiece with narrow piers forming five recessed bays, topped by a series of open pediments forming a chevron parapet. On the ground floor, the three central recessed openings between the piers contain glazed double doors, with full-height glazing in the openings on either side. These entrances stand slightly above ground level, reached by four steps running the length of the projection. A cantilevering canopy shelters the entrances. Above each bay is a narrow five-light window with coloured leaded glass, and above each of the central three windows is a relief boss with a cross pattée. To either side, the elevation continues in brick with projecting headers forming a diaper pattern.

The building line steps back to the main body of the church, a brick drum with concrete plat band and cornice. On each side, above the plat band, are four narrow five-light windows. Below is a single-storey flat-roofed block with three square casements in concrete-framed openings. The roof is flat and features an oblong lantern terminating above the centre-point of the circular plan, surmounted by a cross pattée.

At the rear of the main body are a number of single-storey flat-roofed blocks with a central square chimney. Windows on the rear and presbytery are casements in wide openings; most have been replaced. The presbytery is a two-storey rectangular block with a flat roof and a higher tower at the rear. The south elevation, facing onto Heathcote Road, has wide strip windows with concrete details. Entrance to the presbytery is through a pair of glazed double doors recessed beneath an overhanging roof at the junction with the main body of the church.

The interior nave is focused on the sanctuary, which projects as a raised peninsula from the rear wall of the fan-shaped space. Echoing the shape of the lantern above, the sanctuary is an oblong with a rounded end at the centre-point of the drum. Timber pews, following the curve of the sanctuary, radiate outwards. Behind the sanctuary is an aluminium Crucifixion designed by the architects, lit from above by the clerestory glazing of the lantern. Brasses with a figure and inscription commemorate Fr Edward Daniel, the first priest (died 1856), understood to have been taken from the old church. On the ceiling of the nave, the encased ribs of the roof structure radiate outwards from the lantern. On the right-hand side is a glazed-in Lady Chapel.