Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Fatima

Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Fatima

This is a Roman Catholic parish church designed in 1953-1954 by Gerard Goalen and built between 1958 and 1960. The stained glass was designed and made by Dom Charles Norris of Buckfast Abbey, assisted by Dom Paulinus Angold and Jerome Gladman. The attached cloister and presbytery are not of special architectural interest.

The building comprises an in-situ reinforced-concrete frame with Surrey stock bricks laid in double stretcher garden wall bond to the aisle walls and end walls of the naves and transepts. The nave and transept roofs are comprised of wood-wool slabs supported on pre-cast concrete purlins and clad in long strip copper sheets, with concrete and asphalt covering the aisles, narthexes, chapels and sacristy. A central needle spire, sheathed in copper, rises above the sanctuary.

The church is oriented north to south but follows a T-shaped plan (or three arms of a Greek cross), with each arm having a narthex and aisles. The central crossing is occupied by a large apron-shaped sanctuary. On the east side, the former sacristy now accommodates a weekday chapel, while the former working sacristy and vestry now house the current sacristy. A former study area connected to the sacristies has been converted into a Blessed Sacrament Chapel with an opening into the church space.

The gabled end walls to the west nave and north and south transepts are largely identical, each featuring a recessed narthex porch divided by two cast-stone piers. Three pairs of multi-pane, double-leaf glazed doors with brass sheet cladding sit beneath deep concrete lintels. The intermediate cast-stone piers and brick end walls have square-shaped recesses to accommodate door handles when doors open fully. The original brief included seating for more than 500 parishioners on the paved surfaces outside the three narthexes, with views of the high altar through the open doors. The west wall has a cruciform rose window, while the north and south walls have spoked-wheel rose windows, all with concrete frames. The liturgical east wall is blind except for a hit and miss ventilation panel. Above the single-storey brick walls to the chapels, aisles and sacristy, the surfaces are dominated by concrete-framed windows containing dalle de verre glass, to which clear external panels were added in 2005.

Inside, the reinforced-concrete frame is exposed throughout, with aisle walls and end walls of the naves and transepts being of exposed fair-faced brick laid in stretcher bond. Ceilings to the main body of the church are of wood-wool slabs over pre-cast concrete purlins and rafters, all exposed, while those elsewhere are of painted textured render. Floors are mainly laid with terrazzo tiles, with carpet probably over terrazzo beneath the pews.

The three narthexes are largely identical, with terrazzo floors featuring inset mat wells and marble holy-water wall sconces. Glazed timber screens divide them from the main body of the church, each with a central pair of half-glazed doors with fanlights flanked by three-light windows. Half-glazed double doors at the end of each narthex give access to the side aisles. The west narthex contains the former baptistery (now a shop) on the north side, divided by a glazed timber screen with a half-glazed door, and a late twentieth or early twenty-first century family room on the south side, separated by a timber partition wall. The south narthex contains a terracotta figure of Our Lady of Fatima by Mrs Scott Pitcher, originally placed in the Lady Chapel.

The apron-shaped sanctuary floor is raised by a single step and comprised of hexagonal terrazzo tiles. Altar rails of white Roman marble are supported by black Belgian marble columns. The altar stands on a three-stepped altar platform with a white Roman marble mensa and black Belgian marble legs. A single-stepped platform behind the altar accommodates the priest celebrant's chair. Rising behind the altar is a pierced mosaic screen with a gradine supporting four high altar candlesticks designed by Goalen and made by Anthony Hawksley (1921-1991). A pointed niche contains a figure of Christ, King and Priest by sculptor Daphne Hardy Henrion (1917-2003). Immediately above the screen is the organ loft with organ pipes placed behind a slatted timber screen, accessed by a spiral staircase at the rear, with the pipes linked to an electronic organ on the church floor near the sanctuary. A hexagonal ambo stands to the left-hand side of the altar and a hexagonal pulpit to its right-hand side, both of white Roman marble with pedestals of black Belgian marble. A cylindrical font, originally in the baptistery, stands in the north-west corner of the sanctuary, also of white Roman marble with black Belgian marble legs. The paschal candle stand and current crucifix do not appear to be by Goalen; Goalen's original crucifix is currently stored in the church.

The sanctuary is enclosed on the north, south and west sides by streamlined bench pews with pre-cast concrete frames and mahogany seats and kneelers, designed by Goalen and assembled by members of the parish.

A small Lady Chapel occupies the corner between the north transept west aisle and the west nave north aisle, containing an early twenty-first century figure of Our Lady of Fatima against a background of grey mosaic tiles, with the original figure now in the south narthex. A further small chapel dedicated to Saint Augustine of Hippo is located in the corner between the south transept west aisle and west nave south aisle, housing a bronze statue of the saint against grey mosaic tile background, installed in the early twenty-first century as a memorial to Father Francis Burgess, parish priest from 1953 to 1972.

Stations of the Cross are grouped in the east aisles of the north and south transepts, made of Hopwood stone by Mrs Foord-Kelsey.

On the east side of the church, behind the altar screen, half-glazed double doors lead to a weekday chapel, originally a sacristy. It is simply furnished with a timber altar and ambo and small bench pews fixed to the west and north walls. Immediately to its right-hand side are timber double doors to the sacristy, which contains both original and later twentieth century vestment cupboards, mainly of dark-stained timber. To the right again are two confessionals, both with single timber doors and also accessed from the sacristy. To the left-hand side of the weekday chapel is the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, created in the late twentieth century from a former study area linked to the sacristies by removal of a small section of wall to connect it with the main body of the church. It has fair-faced brick walls with a timber slatted screen over the window, a tongue and groove boarded ceiling and a single-stepped altar platform with a marble altar.

The main internal focal points are the dalle de verre glass windows, which throw light into the church from every angle. Glass in the transepts depicts the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, while glass in the nave, made slightly later in 1961, shows the Tree of Jesse and the Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima, Portugal in 1917. The end walls all have smaller rose windows with more abstract designs.