Roman Catholic Chapel of St Edmund's College, Cloister and Scholefield Chantry

St Edmund's College Chapel is a major work by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, built between 1845 and 1853 and completed the year after his death. It has notable additions by Edward Welby Pugin in 1861 and 1862, and by Frederick Arthur Walters in 1904 and 1922. The interior includes the rood which was the centrepiece of Pugin's stand at the Great Exhibition, and stained glass by Hardman, and by Lavers and Westlake.

The main body of the church is built in pale brown brick with ashlar stone dressings, beneath a slate roof. The Scholefield chapel is in rich honey brick with a scalloped slate roof.

The chapel is accessed from the north end of the College by a long cloister referred to as 'Monuments Lane'. On axis with it is the Scholefield Chantry. The Pugin building is T-shaped, with a transeptal antechapel at the west, accessed from the cloister via the south transept. The Griffiths Chantry is to the right on entry to the antechapel. The main chapel, to the east, consists of a choir and sanctuary, and is accessed from the antechapel via a two-bay rood screen. The north transept gives access to a sacristy at the north, and the Lady Chapel at the east. The Shrine Chapel, located in the base of the intended tower, is accessed at the north from the Lady Chapel. To the west, accessed from the antechapel, is the Galilee Chapel.

The original Pugin chapel has gabled transepts to the west, lit by a large wheel window to the south with elaborate foiled tracery. The choir has five bays of high Geometrical three-light windows between gabled buttresses with offsets. The central buttress in the eastern bay has a statue of St Edmund in a niche, beneath a seven-light east window with curvilinear tracery. To the south, the Scholefield Chapel is designed like a thirteenth-century shrine casket. It is built in buff brick and stone with a hipped scalloped slate roof, elaborate openwork parapet and finials, and is located on axis with the cloister on the south side of the main chapel. The Lady Chapel is located parallel on the north side in materials matching the main chapel. The five-bay Shrine Chapel sits perpendicular to the Lady Chapel, in the position originally intended for the projected north tower and spire and is in materials matching the main chapel, having a variety of Decorated two-light windows. The twin-nave Galilee Chapel extends west from the antechapel. It is faced with Bath stone externally, and is lit by wide three-light fifteenth-century style windows.

The chapel is approached via a small cloister or walkway, known as 'Monuments Lane'. This contains monuments to various Vicars Apostolic, of whom six are buried here: Bonaventure Giffard, Andrew Giffard, Benjamin Petre, James Talbot, James Bramston and Robert Gradwell. There are monuments to these and other Vicars Apostolic, buried here and in the chapel, and to notable Edmundians, including the Reverend Thomas Byles, who died on RMS Titanic.

The antechapel has Decorated columns with foliate capitals. Within this space is the enclosed Griffiths Chantry, or St Thomas' Chapel, with the monument and tomb of Bishop Griffiths who died in 1847, by Augustus Welby Pugin. Originally intended as the Lady Chapel, the stone altar has roundels depicting the Annunciation and in the reredos, a figure of St Thomas of Canterbury sits under a canopy. The original windows of the chapel were destroyed in 1941 and replaced in 1950. The Stations of the Cross on the west wall of the antechapel are painted scenes on a mahogany backing, framed in alabaster; they were given in 1898 by Monsignor Fenton, a past President of the College.

There is a wheel window on the south side of the antechapel and four large windows in the west wall. The wheel window depicts the Madonna and Child surrounded by angels, and was given in 1899. The four west windows are in memory of past Presidents of the College. Opposite the Griffiths Chantry is a window to Canon George Akers who died in 1899, by Hardman; it depicts the Assumption of Our Lady flanked by St George and St Andrew. The Weathers window, opposite the tomb of Bishop William Weathers who died in 1895, was erected by public subscription in 1897 and is by Lavers and Westlake; it depicts St Bede, St Leo the Great and St Thomas Aquinas, with scenes depicting Bishop Weathers' patrons below. The Rymer window is opposite the tomb of Father Frederick Rymer who died in 1910, and was given by Father Rymer in 1900. Also by Lavers and Westlake, it depicts St Joseph, Our Lord and St Francis de Sales above and St Agnes, Our Lady and St Aloysius below. The Fenton window was presented by Bishop Patrick Fenton in 1903 to commemorate the golden jubilee of the opening of the chapel. It is by Lavers and Westlake and depicts St John the Baptist, St Patrick, St Joseph and St Augustine; a portrait of Bishop Fenton is included amongst the scenes below.

The main chapel, or choir, is entered through an elaborate Early English seven-bay wide and two-bay deep rood screen or pulpitum, of Caen stone, with cusped tracery and quatrefoil medallions in the spandrels. Above, the rood is of painted oak, with flanking figures of St John and Our Lady in painted pinewood. The rood was the centrepiece of Pugin's display at the Great Exhibition in 1851. Within the screen are two altars, now dedicated to St Peter and St Paul, with stained glass figures of saints in the tracery above.

The choir measures approximately 24.5 metres by 9 metres. It has an arch-braced open timber roof, and a coffered timber pointed barrel vault to the two-bay sanctuary, painted with monograms by Alfred White, with assistance from John Virtue, in 1848 to 1849. Pugin's high altar and reredos are of white stone, with four slender marble pillars at the outside supporting the reredos. The richly carved altar frontal has roundels of Christ in Majesty flanked by Melchisedech and Abraham. The stone tabernacle has brass doors with crystal bosses, and is incorporated within a pinnacled monstrance throne, surmounted by angels and a pelican in her piety. The reredos has statues of angels in the niches and a Crucifixion in relief over the tabernacle. The sanctuary walls were panelled in oak and the floor covered in inlaid parquetry in 1934, to mark Cardinal Bourne's sacerdotal golden jubilee.

On either side of the choir are three rows of oak stalls with tracery panelled fronts, the back row with a high coved canopy with brattishing. The central space is paved with red, blue and yellow encaustic tiles, and is dominated by a large brass eagle lectern.

The seven-light east window depicts two rows of figures, with Christ above and St Edmund below in the central lights. Made by Hardman from Pugin's designs, it dates from 1847 to 1848. The two windows on each side of the sanctuary represent scenes from the life of St Edmund. Three were installed in 1869 from designs by Hardman. A fourth, made by Mayer from designs by A E Purdie in 1884, was destroyed in 1941 and replaced by the current window in 1952. The choir windows commemorate the history of the college. On the south side, the first window from the east is the Presidents' window, a 1951 replacement for an 1861 Hardman window destroyed in wartime. Next to this, the Ward window dates from 1883 and is by Hardman; it depicts King David, St Peter and St Paul. Finally, the Crimea Window is also a 1951 replacement of a Hardman window of 1857. On the north side, the first choir bay from the east is the English Martyrs' window, erected in 1887 to commemorate the beatification of 54 English martyrs, by Lavers and Westlake. Next to this, the Founders' window is by Hardman and was put up in 1893 to mark the centenary of the College; it commemorates Bishops Douglass, Stapleton and Poynter. Finally, the Douai window is also by Hardman and dated 1893, and includes images of the colleges at Douai and Old Hall.

The Lady Chapel is reached via a stone screen in the north transept of the main chapel. Here there is a relocated statue of the Madonna and Child carved by Thomas Earp, originally presented in 1853. The chapel has a two-bay ribbed vault supported by eight pillars with marble shafts, with gilded capitals. The altar frontal has three stubby columns and roundels depicting the Adoration of the Magi and the Flight into Egypt. The tabernacle is of alabaster, its brass door depicting a pelican. Over the altar is a crocketed aedicule, its tympanum carved with a representation of the Holy Family attended by St John the Baptist and an angel. All is highly polychromatic, doubtless in part to make up for the absence of stained glass windows.

Inside, the Scholefield Chantry is raised on four steps, over the Scholefield vault. The walls and groin vaulted roof are entirely of stone, all richly carved and detailed. The floor is laid with encaustic tiles. The altar frontal has a high relief panel depicting the Crucifixion flanked by black marble columns. Similar columns support the triple canopy of the reredos, in which recess is a carved depiction of the Ascension. Above is a window of five lights.

Built in 1904, the Shrine Chapel is reached via the Lady Chapel. The centrepiece of the space is the vividly painted Bath stone reredos, with a central recess over the altar housing the fibula of the left leg of St Edmund, in a cylinder of ruby glass in an elaborate brass setting. The compartments of the timber boarded ceiling are painted with shields. Above the sacristy door in the west wall is a triptych depicting St Edmund and other saints, by Augusto Stoppoloni, presented by Cardinal Vaughan. The stained glass, consisting of four windows on the north side and two on the south sides, depicts scenes from the life of St Edmund and scenes relating to the story of the relic, by Lavers and Westlake, dated variously between 1905 and 1908.

The Galilee Chapel is located to the west of the antechapel, from which it is reached by a pair of oak doors. The chapel is faced with Bath stone both internally and externally, and is lit by wide three-light fifteenth-century style windows. The two naves are divided by a central arcade. The roof is of Columbian pinewood, arched and panelled. The altar is of carved alabaster, with a painted triptych above depicting Our Lady of Pity flanked by St Peter and St George. This looks like the work of Nathaniel Westlake. Before the altar is the tomb of Cardinal Bourne who died in 1935, his cardinal's hat hanging above. The windows in the eastern bay of the chapel were installed in 1936 as a memorial to Bourne.