Catholic Church and Presbytery Attached is a Grade II listed building in the East Hertfordshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 6 July 1984. Church, presbytery.
Catholic Church and Presbytery Attached
- WRENN ID
- high-parapet-owl
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- East Hertfordshire
- Constituency
- North East Hertfordshire MP: Chris Hinchliff (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 6 July 1984
- Type
- Church, presbytery
- Address
- Catholic Church and Presbytery Attached, Station Road, Buntingford
- OS grid reference
- TL 363 292
- Coordinates
- 51.94496, -0.01781
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Benson Memorial Catholic Church, dedicated to St Richard of Chichester, and the attached presbytery were built in 1915 by Arthur Young, with a later south extension to the presbytery. The church features uncoursed knapped flint with limestone dressings and steep red tiled roofs. It is designed in the Decorated style, consisting of a nave, a lower chancel, a northeast Lady Chapel, a west tower with a spire, a north porch, and a two-storey presbytery linked to the south side facing east, which includes a single-storey south extension.
The tower is crenellated and topped with a copper spike and vane, and it has four-centred arched two-light bell openings with a band at sill level, diagonal west buttresses, and a tall statue of a saint holding a spade on the northeast corner of the tower. The church also features decorative stone tracery windows and diagonal buttresses.
Inside, there is a waggon roof with moulded battens, carved bosses, and cresting on the wallplate, along with an octagonal font with a fluted shaft. The presbytery has a low gabled link to the southeast, constructed of similar materials, with an asymmetrical front. The ground floor features a long band of trefoil-headed stone windows under a hoodmould, with four lights to the left and five lights to the right of an arched doorway that has quartrefoil carved spandrels. The upper section includes three two-light and three-light chamfered stone windows, with sills connected by a band.
Local climate
Catholic Church and Presbytery Attached sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 710 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 89% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 80% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 36 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 61% of listed buildings. Of these, 17 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
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