The Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and the English Martyrs, Cambridge

The Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and the English Martyrs is a Roman Catholic parish church built between 1887 and 1890 to the designs of Dunn and Hansom of Newcastle.

The church is constructed of stone, with foundations of Casterton stone, Ancaster stone plinths, exterior walls of Combe Down stone, and Bath stone from Farleigh Down facing the interior walls and vaults. Dressings are of Plymouth marble and Newbiggin stone. The pitched roofs are covered in plain tiles.

The church is not traditionally oriented; liturgical east (where the altar is located) faces geographic south-east. The building has a cruciform plan with an apsidal east end, a crossing tower, basilican nave, a western narthex or antechapel, and a steeple over the north porch.

The architecture is inspired by the Early Decorated or Middle Pointed style of the last quarter of the 13th century.

The liturgical west front faces Lensfield Road with the steeple on the left-hand side and transept on the right. The large west window has six lights with geometric tracery above and is flanked by stair turrets. Above the window the gable is filled with statuary: a choir of angels rising towards the Coronation of the Virgin. The west doors stand within a wide portal with three archivolts. The tympanum is filled with fleurs de lys and, supported on a trumeau, there is a figure of the Virgin and Child at its centre. Either side of the portal there are canopied figures of Saint Joseph (left) and Saint Anne (right), and above it is a quotation from the Magnificat: 'FECIT MIHI MAGNA QUI POTENS EST' (He who is powerful has made me great).

The steeple stands at the liturgical north-west corner of the church at the corner of Lensfield Road and Hills Road. The tower rises in three stages with angle buttresses. The octagonal spire has pinnacles at the corners of the tower and large lucarnes at the cardinal points. The belfry stage has paired openings that have been partly in-filled with brick. Projecting out to the crossroads is a two-sided clock face supported on a large stone bracket. At the base of the tower facing Hills Road is an entrance porch, richly carved and ornamented. At the centre of the porch is a trumeau featuring Saint John Fisher, one of the most prominent Catholic martyrs associated with Cambridge. In the tympanum is a figure of the Virgin Mary surrounded by censing angels and a scrolling vine populated by martyrs. The gabled canopy rises to a scene of the Crucifixion. To the left and right of the archway are elaborately pinnacled canopies housing figures of the martyred Saint Alban and Saint Thomas Becket respectively. On the liturgical east side of the tower the engaged octagonal form of the baptistery stands in the corner with the nave aisle.

The north wall of the nave is five bays long. Flying buttresses rise from the aisles, where two-light windows are surmounted by separate occuli filled with trefoils, up to the clerestorey, which has large geometric tracery, all varied. The parapet is carved with the text of the prayer 'Ave Maria', continued from the chancel: SANCTA MARIA MATER DEI ORA PRO NOBIS PECCATORIBUS NUNC ET IN HORA MORTIS NOSTRAE AMEN (Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen).

The north transept has four narrow lancets at the lower level and a large rose window above. The window has six oculi each with three rounded trefoils. At its centre is a carved figure of Christ. The carved spandrels are inhabited by the beasts of the apocalypse, and above it is an inscription: PRAY FOR YE GOOD ESTATE OF YOLANDE MAR[IE] L[OUI]SE LYNE STEPHENS FOUNDRESS OF THIS CHURCH.

At the corner of the north transept and the chancel there is a pair of hipped roofs over the adoration chapel.

The chancel is apsidal and the buttresses of each bay terminate in angel pinnacles. There is a complex arrangement of glazing at triforium level with narrow lancets set behind open tracery framed by carved spandrels featuring angels. The numerous gargoyles that cover the church are most noticeable here. The large clerestorey windows all have three lights with unique geometric tracery in each bay. The parapet is carved with the beginning of the text of the Ave Maria: AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA DOMINUS TECUM BENEDICTA TU IN MULIERIBUS ET BENEDICTUS FRUCTUS VENTRIS TUI JESUS (Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus).

On the liturgical south side of the chancel is the chapel of the Sacred Heart and the priests' sacristy. Both have flat roofs and the latter has square windows of three lights topped with flowing tracery. Shrapnel damage from the Second World War remains visible on the walling at the south-east corner.

The crossing tower has two large three-light windows with geometric tracery on each side and a crenelated parapet pierced by finials. At each corner is a tall crocketed pinnacle. At the south-east corner is an open-tracery stair turret surmounted by a figure of Our Lady ringed with a choir of angels. An inscription follows the rising staircase. It is a text from the Song of Solomon (3:6 and 6:9) that is associated with the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary: QUAE EST ISTA QUAE ASCENDIT PER DESERTUM SICUT VIRGULA FUMI EX AROMANTIBUS MYRRHAE / QUAE EST ISTA QUAE PROGREDITUR QUASI AURORA CONSURGENS (Who is this that ascends out of the wilderness like a pillar of smoke, perfumed with myrrh? / Who is she that comes forth as the rising dawn?).

The principal feature of the south transept is an engaged stair turret that rises into the gable. Narrow windows and weather mouldings break up the rest of the elevation.

The south side of the nave repeats the form of the north, though the parapet is not inscribed. The terminals of the hoodmoulds feature portrait carvings of the heads of the architects, Canon Scott, Cardinal Newman, and the 15th Duke of Norfolk. The flat-roofed chapel of the Holy Souls stands in the corner between the aisle and the narthex transept. The latter has a large window at clerestorey height with four lights and geometric tracery.

The high quality of materials and decorative complexity executed externally is maintained throughout the interior of the church. The church interior is lofty and numinous. From wood block floors rise stone columns and walls, pierced by stained glass. A stone tierceron vault with carved bosses adds to the cathedral-like quality of the building.

Beginning at the liturgical west end, the interior spaces of the church include a porch at the base of the west tower and a wide narthex or antechapel. The porch has a floor of encaustic tiles and, amongst many carved details, a sculptural portrait of Yolande Lyne-Stephens as a head stop. Above the porch, now inside the church, is a ringers gallery that opens on to the narthex through a tall open archway. The narthex is separated from the nave by an elaborate ironwork screen. On the western wall of the narthex, spiral staircases lead to a narrow gallery. The south wall of the narthex-transept has a 19th-century wall painting by NHJ Westlake.

The nave proper is basilican in section and rises to a clerestorey. The columns have clustered shafts and detached responds of Plymouth marble. On its north and south sides respectively is an octagonal baptistery and a square chapel dedicated to the Holy Souls. The vaulted baptistery has an ironwork gate and a font carved with scenes of the Seven Sacraments.

Where the nave meets the crossing there are marble altar rails and, above, the Rood on an arched beam by B. McLean Leach (1914). Beneath the crossing is Goalen's central altar. Above the chancel arch is a wall painting by NHJ Westlake showing Christ surrounded by the company of heaven, English martyrs and religious brethren. On the north and south sides of the crossing the transepts are separated by tall double arches.

Within the north transept a single column supports the complex vault. On the walls there are figures of Saint John Fisher and of Saint Andrew, the latter designed by Pugin and originally belonging to the earlier mission church. At its east end is a chapel of the Adoration. The parclose screen within the transept originally enclosed the chancel until the 1970s reordering.

The south transept connects to the sacristies and to the Chapel of the Sacred Heart, which has a richly painted vault, a floor brass marking the grave of Canon Scott by Hardman of Birmingham, and a substantial carved reredos. Across the transept is a stone organ gallery with a balcony of pierced quartrefoils. The organ, by Abbott and Smith of Leeds, is contemporary with the church.

The chancel is apsidal and has a small glazed triforium. The floor is covered in encaustic tile. At its centre, on a stepped platform, is a large baldacchino modelled on a 14th-century tomb cover at the church of Santa Chiara in Naples.

The sacristies have oak joinery. The priests' sacristy has a stone fireplace, now blocked by a radiator, with the inscription FLAMMESCAT IGNE CARITAS (May [our] love burn with fire).