Roman Catholic Chapel of St Margaret

Roman Catholic Chapel of St Margaret

A Roman Catholic church and former convent chapel built between 1929 and 1931, designed by W C Mangan in the Arts and Crafts Lombard Romanesque style. The building is reverse orientated with the altar facing west, though this description follows conventional liturgical orientation.

The walls are faced with mixed purple and red hand-made sand-faced Berkshire bricks laid in Flemish bond, detailed with red brick and tile work and stone copings. The roofs are covered in Roman pantiles.

The church has a cruciform plan with a nave flanked by processional aisles, a western narthex, a crossing with north and south transepts, and an apsidal sanctuary with flanking chapels. A covered way or cloister runs parallel to the south aisle, formerly connecting to the convent. Within the angle of the south transept and south chapel stands the parish room (Flanagan Room), which was formerly the sacristies.

The western gable has a single round-headed window with blind arcading at the wall head. The entrance is set in a canted south-west angle beneath a projecting gabled porch with recessed Ionic columns and brick and stone banding. The porch tympanum contains a mosaic of The Annunciation by Gabriel Pippett, dating to circa 1930. The south elevation of the nave features five lunette clerestory windows and alternating blind and glazed round-headed windows in the aisle. The shallow gabled transepts project slightly beyond the aisle line, each with a single tall central window and extensive blind arcading. The short apsidal sanctuary to the east has lunette windows at clerestory level, a wavy decorative tile band, and blind arcaded walls below. The side chapels are apsidal and windowless, decorated with brick panels and creased tile detailing. On the north side, the single-storey former cloister and parish room have flat roofs concealed by parapets and round-arched window openings with brick sills. At the north-west corner, rendered painted walls have been made good following demolition of the linked convent buildings.

Internally, the entrance vestibule is paved in marble and separated from the church by a screen beneath the gallery with swing doors and arched glazed openings. The circulation areas of the nave and aisles are paved with Travertine marble, while areas beneath the pews are finished in herringbone Bagnac teak woodblocks. A marble dado runs around the perimeter, with plastered and painted walls above.

The nave contains tall four-bay arcades of round-headed arches supported on marble-veneered columns with bronze gold Corinthian capitals. Above the arcades runs a heavy stone cornice with a barrel-vaulted ceiling pierced by lucarnes. The aisles feature transverse vaults marking the bays and groin vaults within them. At the west end, adjoining the porch and a former confessional, a stone stairway leads to the gallery, which once housed an organ and is now enclosed as a separate room. Above this is a smaller gallery or tribune, which formerly connected to the convent. The eastern arches rest on demi-columns set against the piers of the crossing, which are pierced with narrow arches. Originally a screen separated the nave and aisles from the nuns' choir; the stanchions for the aisle gates remain in place. The crossing has a simple groin vault, and the shallow transepts are barrel vaulted.

The sanctuary is richly finished by the Art Marbles, Stone & Mosaic Co. of Westminster and Malden. The floor and walls are clad in coloured marbles to cornice level. The original high altar, built of Carrara and Brescia Corallina marbles with mosaics, features a central tabernacle throne beneath a massive ciborium supported on onyx columns. A forward altar of white marble, installed in 1996–97, was brought from the Convent of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary at The Boltons, Kensington, London. The sanctuary is flanked by the Lady Chapel to the south and the Sacred Heart chapel to the north, each with coloured marble altars inlaid with mosaic, marble-lined walls and floors, and vaulted ceilings.

An enclosed cloister runs alongside and parallel to the north aisle, formerly connecting to the convent, with three windows per bay and segmental transverse arches marking the bays. It contains a marble wall monument commemorating deceased members of the community from 1894 to 1967. The former sacristies now serve as the Flanagan Room for meetings.

The windows are leaded with mottled clear glazing incorporating coloured borders and motifs. The church retains its original oak benches. As the chapel was not used for baptisms, it contains no baptistery or font.