Church of St Mary including church rooms and surrounding wall

Church of St Mary including Church Rooms and Surrounding Wall

This Roman Catholic church was built between 1848 and 1850 by J J Scoles for the Jesuits. It is executed in the Perpendicular style with late Decorated features.

MATERIALS AND CONSTRUCTION

The church is built of knapped flint with limestone ashlar dressings. The roof is covered in 20th-century concrete tiles.

PLAN

The church has a traditional plan with a chancel at the east end and a tower at the west, with a nave and side aisles. A link building containing sacristies, dating from the late 1890s, connects the south nave aisle to the presbytery. Church rooms were added to the south and a presbytery to the west, both also designed by Scoles in matching style.

EXTERIOR

The tower at the north-west has four stages with setback buttresses in flushwork. Its ground floor features a pointed-arch doorway to the north with decorated spandrels framed by a stone hood-mould supported on carved stone heads of St Edmund King and Martyr and St Augustine. The two-leaf wooden door has decorative strapwork. Above this, at the first stage, is a recessed niche with a cusped ogee arched head containing a statue of the Madonna with the Christ-child. A single-light cusped window appears on the west elevation. The second stage has square pierced ventilation panels serving the ringing chamber. At the third stage, two-light belfry windows have tracery and latticed stone infills. A polygonal stair turret at the south-west rises to a crocketed pinnacle. The tower is crowned by a double crenellated parapet with flushwork panel and lozenge decoration and corner pinnacles.

The side aisles, under pent roofs, each have four two-light windows separated by flushwork buttresses, with two additional windows lighting the Chapel of the Sacred Heart and the Lady Chapel at the east end of the north and south aisles respectively. Above these are four clerestory lights of encircled quatrefoils. The east chancel window has five lights in the Perpendicular style. The south nave aisle has a round west window enclosing an ogee-sided quatrefoil with extensive cusping.

Church rooms dating from 1900 are attached to the south-west of the chancel. These are constructed in flint with brick and stone detailing and are linked by a covered walkway under a gabled slate roof.

INTERIOR

A stoup remains beside the main door in the porch. Double doors with decorative strapwork lead into the nave, which has a seven-sided panelled ceiling between cast-iron transverse arches. The ceiling is stencilled with a sacred heart and foliate motif in red and gold and incorporates 800 carved wooden bosses. At the west end, the gallery front has tracery panels and supports the late 19th-century organ and choir-loft. Beneath the gallery stands a freestanding sculpture of Mary cradling the fallen Christ. Arcades of four and five arches, supported on octagonal piers with moulded capitals and bases, lead to the north and south aisles. Most of the mid-19th-century pews survive. The 1850 tracery altar rail now stands at the west end of the central blocks of benches.

The chancel at the east end has a moulded chancel arch with hood-stops and engaged columns. An early 20th-century wall painting above depicts the Coronation of the Virgin. A richly carved stone altar with figures of the Saints was designed by Scoles. The reredos shows eight standing saints flanking a central niche. The five-light east window contains stained glass depicting Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, flanked by Saints Peter and Paul with St Ignatius and St Francis Xavier in the outer lights. Wall paintings appear to date from the early 20th century and may be by Archibald Jervis, who painted Our Lady of Great Yarmouth in the Lady Chapel. The sanctuary has a ribbed and stencilled ceiling rising from a castellated cornice. Complex iron screens, probably dating from the mid-19th century, fill the arches to both chancel chapels.

Along the west end wall of the nave, continuing along the walls of the north and south aisles, are panels depicting the Stations of the Cross in relief. At the east end of the north aisle, the Chapel of the Sacred Heart contains a mid-19th-century painted stone altar incorporating a sculpture of the dead Christ flanked by angels. A brass memorial to Father Lythgoe, the parish priest between 1852 and 1855, made by Hardman and Co., is inserted into the tiled floor. The Lady Chapel at the east end of the south aisle is segregated by delicate cast iron railings. It contains an altar and a mural on the south wall dated 1921 by Archibald Jarvis depicting Our Lady of Yarmouth supported by scenes of local historic interest. The chapel ceiling is embossed with crowned Ms and lilies in blue and gold. The stone and marble gated altar rails are a memorial to Father Thompson from 1926.

Two windows in the south and north aisles contain stained glass from around 1860 and 1890 by Mayer and Co. The two-light window in the Chapel of the Sacred Heart, depicting the death of St Ignatius and St Francis Xavier, is late 19th century, possibly by Burlison and Grylls. The pulpit was probably designed by Pugin and executed by George Myers. The font, designed by Scoles, and a niche shrine of St Mary complete the ensemble and were erected to commemorate the founding priest, Father Lopez, in 1860. There is no evidence of a rood screen.

The church rooms have been remodelled and contain few historic fixtures and fittings.

SURROUNDING WALL

A low flint wall with ashlar dressings and piers at intervals surrounds the church and presbytery.

HISTORY

In 1824, before the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, the Jesuits started a mission in Great Yarmouth under Father Tate. Tate had purchased a house and warehouse in the old town for Catholic worship, but by 1841 the congregation had outgrown this accommodation. The new priest, Father Lopez, purchased land outside the town on which the Jesuits would build St Mary's. Built at a cost of £10,000, the Jesuits commissioned Joseph John Scoles (1798-1863), one of their favoured architects, to design and build the church and adjoining presbytery. Scoles had married into a Great Yarmouth family and designed several listed buildings in the town including St Peter's Anglican Church (later St Spiridion's Greek Orthodox Church) and Britannia Terrace on Marine Parade.

The church was opened on 24 September 1850 by Bishop Wareing, with a congregation of 800. It remains little altered except for the addition of austere church rooms to the south-east in 1900. Minor reordering of the sanctuary occurred in 1978 when the altar rails were removed and re-erected at the rear of the church, the sanctuary floor was raised, the pulpit was lowered, and the font was moved from the rear of the nave to beneath the gallery. In the same year, many of the statues were sadly vandalised and subsequently restored by local craftsmen. The roof covering to the nave and aisles has been replaced with concrete tiles.