Church Of Our Lady Immaculate And St Edmund King And Martyr With Attached Former Presbytery

Church of Our Lady Immaculate and St Edmund King and Martyr with Attached Former Presbytery, Stoke by Nayland

A Roman Catholic church and attached former presbytery built in 1827 for the Mannock family of Gifford's Hall, with the presbytery itself dating from the 17th century but remodelled in 1827.

The church is constructed of gault brick with a south flank of red brick and a slate roof. It follows a rectangular meeting house plan with a two-storey west front. A single-storey central porch features three arched openings and is topped with a rendered and colourwashed crenellated parapet with stiff-leaf finials at the corners. To the left of the porch stands one arched window with two-light Y-tracery glazing; a corresponding window to the right was blocked in 1991 with a board inscribed with the building's history. Two trefoiled lancets above are set under hoodmoulds within blocked openings. The north return displays four two-light Y-tracery windows beneath hoodmoulds on label stops with brick relieving arches. An east window has been blocked. The south return contains one blind recessed arch, partly hidden by a lean-to extension leading to a lean-to vestry at the east end, with one Y-tracery two-light window to the south and a doorway to the east.

The interior features an elliptical plastered ceiling and a west gallery supported on two cast-iron columns. The gallery's balustrade comprises wrought and cast iron with alternating wide and narrow panels featuring interlace of ogeed and arched verticals rising to a double top rail and timber handrail. Gallery stairs have stick balusters with a ramped handrail and closed string. A stone holy water stoup features wavy cusping to a pointed arch and an apron with three panels. The octagonal font has a traceried stem and encircled quatrefoils to the bowl. Altar rails of cast and wrought iron follow the same pattern as the gallery balustrade, supporting a sarcophagus altar.

The presbytery, now a private house, is constructed of red brick with a gault brick west facade over earlier timber framing, with slate and plaintiled roofs. The 17th-century building was remodelled in 1827 and follows a lobby entrance plan. It rises two storeys with dormer attic accommodation and comprises a three-window range. Rendered and painted rusticated quoins flank a central six-panelled door with upper panels glazed, fitted with a reeded timber doorcase and hood bearing a plaque inscribed Gloria Excelsis Deo. One unhorned tripartite sash window stands to the right and left at ground floor with 2/2:6/6:2/2 glazing, set within rendered and painted raised surrounds under hoods on label stops. Three 6/3 unhorned sashes occupy the first floor in similar surrounds. A central ridge stack rises through the roof. The south return exhibits one unhorned tripartite sash to the ground floor with 2/2:6/6:2/2 glazing bars within a rendered and painted raised surround with hoodmould on label stops. One 6/3 unhorned sash appears on the first and attic floors in comparable surrounds. Two flat-headed dormers are fitted with two-light casements with arched tracery heads. A two-storey rear outshut under a catslide roof contains a three-window range with a central half-glazed door featuring Y-tracery glazing bars, one 20th-century two-light casement to the left, and one early 19th-century three-light casement to the right with arched tracery heads. Three similar two-light first-floor casements align above.

The church represents an unusual example of a Catholic place of worship built in the early 19th century following the 1790 Second Catholic Relief Act, which permitted public Catholic worship. Its simple and unobtrusive design barely reveals its religious purpose; the interior follows an austere Nonconformist aesthetic with its west gallery arrangement. The Mannock family had previously hosted communicants for secret masses at Gifford's Hall. This church exemplifies both the growing tolerance towards Catholics in the period and their continued caution in constructing new religious buildings. The family adapted one of their existing properties and attached the church to it, making the combined group significant to the architectural and social history of Catholic emancipation.