Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Victories, including the entrance screen

Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Victories

This Roman Catholic church was built between 1957 to designs by Adrian Gilbert Scott. It is approached by a separate entrance screen dating from the 1930s, designed by Joseph Goldie.

The church walls are faced in brick laid in English bond with Portland stone details. The west front is clad in dark facing brick, while the side elevations are finished in pale brick.

The church follows a rectangular plan with a five-bay nave and aisles, a rectangular sanctuary flanked by side chapels, and a passage at the entrance spanned by a brick screen.

Much of the church is screened from view by commercial buildings on High Street. Architectural detailing is concentrated at the west front, which takes the form of a wide tower. The entrance is the most ornate feature, comprising a pointed arched opening with deep grooved reveal in limestone, surmounted by a two-tier raking Perpendicular panelled arcade and a canopied recess holding a statue of Our Lady of Victories (by Messrs Albion of Merton). This is flanked by a pair of half-engaged octagonal piers and the entrance is deeply recessed and lined in ashlar limestone facing blocks. The tower is finished with a plain parapet, which differs significantly from Scott's original design, which showed Gothic blind arcading and a pyramidal roof. The nave and sanctuary have a continuous pitched roof, hipped at the east end. The narrow and tall aisles are flat roofed, as are various ancillary structures and a 1970s east extension. The five-bay side aisles and one-bay chancel are lit by tall two-light Decorated windows.

Inside, side porches and a central entrance lead directly into a lofty nave of five bays, which has a west gallery but no narthex. Rather than conventional aisles, there is an enfilade of shoulder-arched openings to north and south, cut into a series of deep projecting piers which articulate the bays and rise to form a massive arcade of pointed arches either side of the nave. (Scott's original perspective drawings indicated parabolic arches to the nave bays and sanctuary, but these were modified to conventional pointed arches by Goodhart-Rendel.) The sanctuary is rectangular, reached by five segmental steps and separated from the nave by a pointed arch. The nave roof is coved, plastered and painted. Throughout, walls and piers are plastered and painted over a tall dado of Horton stone with pale pointing, finished with a frieze moulded in a profiled wicket pattern.

The north aisle contains a shrine to Saint Theresa and is lined with confessionals. The Lady Chapel lies to the south of the sanctuary and the Sacred Heart Chapel to the north. Both are accessed by metal gates (those to the Sacred Heart Chapel appear to be original; those to the Lady Chapel were replaced around 1990) and are divided from the sanctuary by geometric metal screens. Each has a coved ceiling with decorative panelling. The Sacred Heart Chapel contains a plain stone altar and a statue of the Sacred Heart on a wall-mounted marble surround. The Lady Chapel has a marble altar with a carved and painted reredos containing a statue of Our Lady of Victories. The gallery contains a large organ.

The baptismal font is of stone with linear detailing painted in gold and a carved oak cover. Windows are leaded and stained by Charles F Blakeman, depicting Biblical scenes and saints. A large carved wooden crucifix from Bavaria, formerly suspended above the sanctuary, is now sited in the south aisle serving as a twelfth Station of the Cross. There are conventional statues of Our Lady Help of Christians and Saint Joseph by Mayer of Munich. The Martyrs' Chapel in the south-west corner is decorated with mural paintings by Peter Lyall dating from around 1995. A large freestanding artwork by Stephen Foster is located to the rear of the sanctuary, comprising a depiction of the Crucifixion on a tall painted relief panel.

On the street frontage stands the 1930s entrance screen by architect Joseph Goldie, built in brick and Portland stone in the form of a pedimented gateway with a four-centred arched opening surmounted by a statue of the Madonna in a Gothic niche, flanked by stone shields.