Coldham Cottage and the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady Immaculate and St Joseph

Coldham Cottage and the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady Immaculate and St Joseph

This building began as a mission house, built in the early 18th century by Elizabeth Rookwood Gage (1684–1759) of Coldham Hall. It was remodelled and extended in 1870 as a Roman Catholic mission church and presbytery by Sir Edward Rokewode Gage (1812–1872) of Hengrave Hall.

The church and presbytery are constructed of timber frames with cement and sand render, brick stacks, and pantile roofs under a continuous ridge. The composition is roughly T-shaped, running north-north-east to south-south-west, with the church at the north end and the presbytery at the south end. A late 19th-century crosswing at the rear houses the church's sacristy and the presbytery's kitchen and dining room. The late 18th-century house was probably of a lobby entry plan with a central stack before its northern bay (up to the present church porch) was remodelled and incorporated into the church in 1870.

Church

The church is single-storey. The south side consists of four bays with a gabled porch featuring curved bargeboards projecting from the second bay from the left. The porch contains a pointed doorway with double plank and batten doors, above which stands a small statue of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus on a corbelled plinth. The gable apex bears a date stone inscribed '1870'. The main church doorway within the porch is pointed with double plank doors with fillets applied with square-headed nails. All other bays have two-light pointed windows with Y tracery. The west end has a large three-light pointed window, and the north side has two two-light pointed windows, all with Y tracery.

The interior comprises a single, aisleless volume with plastered walls scored to imitate ashlar. The roof over the southern half, created from the earlier house, is vaulted and plastered, while that to the 1870 addition is scissor-braced with wrought-iron ties. At the east end is a tall pointed recess containing a crucifix and tabernacle. The forward altar is of 20th-century date, incorporating older re-set carved wheatsheaves and grapes. On the south side of the sanctuary at the east end is a small brass memorial tablet to Sir Edward Rokewood Gage, died 1872. Above this, possibly dating from the same time, is a stained glass window depicting St Peter and St Paul. The remaining windows have pale pink, yellow, and blue tinted glass in diamond and rectangular-shaped quarries. A four-panelled door at the eastern end of the north side leads through to a small sacristy in the 19th-century rear crosswing. The nave seating consists of plain benches which possibly came from the school that formerly stood immediately north of the church before it was demolished in the late 20th century. The pew frontals, incorporating hexagonal patterns, appear to be the former communion rails. The Stations of the Cross are framed 19th-century prints. Light fittings include a brass corona hanging from the centre of the nave. Two war memorials are present: one commemorating local people who fought, and another at the west end of the church remembering those who died.

Presbytery

The presbytery is two storeys plus attic in two unequal bays, the left-hand bay being wider. It has an off-centre right gabled porch with a plain tile roof, containing a recessed half-glazed door of late 19th-century date. All windows are timber-framed replacements of 20th-century date. The ground floor has a four-light casement with side and top-hung openings to the left-hand bay and a three-light casement with side-hung openings subdivided by horizontal glazing bars to the right-hand bay. The first floor has a shallower and narrower four-light casement with side and top-hung openings to the left-hand bay and a two-light casement with a horizontal glazing bar and top-hung opening to the right-hand bay.

The right-hand return has a central external lateral stack with a 20th-century brick flue rising through the apex of the gable. To its right-hand side is a fixed-light casement to the ground floor and two-light casements with side and top-hung openings to the upper floors.

At the rear, the left-hand bay has a 20th-century lean-to with a pantile roof and an off-centre right doorway flanked by three-light windows with stilted segmental heads. The right-hand bay has two-light casements with square-pane glazing to the ground and first floors (the first-floor window being shallower) and a flat-roofed dormer with a three-light casement to the attic. To the right is a gabled crosswing with a brick ridge stack. On its left-hand return is a two-light casement with square-pane glazing to the left-hand side and a two-light casement with a top-hung opening to the right. Its right-hand return has an off-centre left doorway (to the presbytery kitchen) flanked by a single-light window with horizontal glazing bars to its left-hand side and two small fixed-light windows to its right-hand side. The north wall is blind.

On the ground floor, the right-hand side room has an exposed wall plate to the south gable end along with an axial ceiling beam with curved step stops supported by a chamfered wall post; the beam extends across the late 19th-century passage hallway (painted in this area). This room also has an 18th-century lugged fire surround and a late 19th-century four-panel door. The left-hand side room has a late 19th-century four-panel door along with unchamfered axial and transverse ceiling beams, possibly later replacements, and a cross-axial brick hearth with a timber bressumer. To the left-hand side of the hearth is a deep cupboard with four-panel door with HL hinges, which may represent the lobby to the original lobby-entry house. The dining room in the rear crosswing has a plain wooden fire surround on the east wall flanked by a recessed cupboard with a four-panel door to the right and a plank and batten kitchen door to the left, all of probable late 19th-century date. At the east end of the passage hallway is a six-panel rear door with large HL hinges, probably of 18th-century date. The kitchen and lean-to addition retain no historic fixtures and fittings of note.

At the eastern end of the passage hallway, on its south side, a late 19th-century winder staircase with a late 19th-century plank and batten door at the bottom gives access to the first floor. Exposed timber framing in both the stairwell and the right-hand side first-floor room, which is accessed through a late 19th-century plank and batten door, includes jowled wall posts, a wall plate, and a tie beam. The left-hand side room is accessed through a 20th-century plain boarded door and has an 18th-century lugged fireplace surround with an early 19th-century cast-iron grate. To the left-hand side of the fireplace is a deep cupboard with a late 19th-century four-panel door.

The attic is accessed by a 20th-century closed string staircase with square section balusters. It has wide floor boards along with unusual axial bridging beams with the chamfers facing upwards, possibly suggesting that the beams are reset.

The roof has coupled rafters and continues over the adjoining church beneath its vaulted ceiling.