Roman Catholic Church Of St Patricks

This Roman Catholic church was built 1891–93 by John Kelly of Kelly and Birchall in Renaissance style, replacing a late 18th-century building that had been adapted for Catholic worship since 1802. The church is constructed of dark red brick of small gauge with rubbed brick detailing, and demonstrates Italianate design with simplified early Renaissance detail.

Exterior

The church comprises a west campanile tower, vestibule, antechapel, aisled nave, apsidal sanctuary, and south chapel. The west tower serves as a campanile rising 125 feet high over the principal entrance. It has a small stone Corinthian pedimented and columned porch bearing the inscription "UT CHRISTIANI ITA ET ROMANI SITIS" on a narrow former house plot frontage to the square. The tower rises in four pilastered stages with arcaded openings and a deep bracketed eaves cornice supporting a pyramidal roof. The second stage contains a statue of St Francis in an arched alcove. An inscription appears above the third stage, and the bellstage above features paired round-headed arches with a Diocletian arch above. Neo-Baroque cast iron railings enclose the base, though the gates are 1945 replacements. The entrance has raised and fielded panelled wooden doors. The adjoining presbytery at number 21A is separately listed.

On the north side to Sutton Row, the elevation displays bold architectural treatment with arcading, pilasters, and moulded cornices. The two-bay tower and narthex are set back at ground floor level to accommodate cast iron railings in Baroque style. The north aisle is then set back as a nine-bay north wall, but at clerestorey level one bay runs as an open screen to light the hidden west gable of the nave. The clerestorey proper is expressed thereafter as five bays over two storeys with a set-back elevation featuring brick buttresses. The nave terminates in a pedimented gable end. A pedimented stone doorcase appears in the fifth bay, and a service door with windows above in the ninth bay. Above the final two bays on the north, the sanctuary and apse are expressed at clerestorey level only.

Interior: Tower and Vestibule

The tower serves as a vestibule, octagonal on plan. On the south side stands a late 18th-century Pietà figure of an angel holding the Dead Christ, carved in white marble, now painted gold metal. The lower part of the monument is in statuary and yellow marble, with the plinth forming a holy water stoup, also gilt metal painted. The whole design sits within a round-headed alcove. Also present is a probable late 18th-century fixed holy water stoup with gadrooned sides on a moulded octagonal plinth. A hanging lamp bears the donor's name dated 1929 in Neo-Renaissance style. A wall plaque records: "this is the oldest mission in England dedicated to St Patrick. The building which occupied part of this site known as Father O'Leary's Chapel was opened in 1792. The present church was opened on 17 March 1893..."

Interior: Narthex

The two-bay narthex between vestibule and nave has access to the presbytery on the right. Within the first bay is a memorial to the Irish Franciscan Capuchin priest Rev. Arthur O'Leary OSF (born 1729, ordained 1756, died 1802 aged 78). It depicts a standing figure of Faith holding a cross and leaning on a plinth with books including a Holy Bible. The plinth bears a bust of the priest surrounded by a shamrock wreath; the crowned harp of Ireland formerly above is now missing. The work is executed in statuary marble, part relief with inscription below, against a green marble obelisk. The artist is not known, but this is an important and possibly unique memorial to an 18th-century Catholic priest working in France, England, and Ireland. The second bay has stairs to the gallery on the north. On the south is an altar to St Anthony of Padua with two semi-quadrant white marble altar rails and grey marble tiled floor. The altar and reredos are in Byzantine style with variegated marble frontal and reredos, incorporating two circa 1890 unsigned paintings on canvas. A wooden statue of the saint sits under a marble niche with an attic above. The pilasters and soffits of the architrave above are partly painted.

Interior: Nave

The nave has five bays with attached pilasters and entablature supporting the clerestorey. The enriched Corinthian order features arches in between. Two arched windows appear in each clerestorey bay with intervening Corinthian piers with capitals of gilt-painted plaster. The ceiling is an impressive semi-circular Roman barrel vault, wooden with stencilled coffers. The centre aisle has a terrazzo floor with access to benches mounted on wooden flooring. The benches date to circa 1893 and are of stained deal. The rear bay has a tripartite arrangement supporting the gallery above. Two standing marble figures of life-size angels with holy water stoups are possibly from the Moorfields church. At the north is a plaster Pietà below a window.

On the south side a separate bay serves as the baptistery with black and white tiled marble floor. It contains a fixed stone font, painted stone with wooden gilt top, and a fixed marble altar above with a painting of the Baptism of Christ. The stained glass window of the Baptism of Christ dates to 1921. A wooden surround frames a statue of St Anne and the Virgin. At the rear, a fixed plaque records "rectors of St Patrick's church" from 1792 to 1798, incorporating an upper level bas-relief of St Peter, probably 18th century.

Interior: North Aisle

On the north side, the "side chapels" are actually simple recesses between the arches. At the north on entry is a fixed marble shelf on columns. The next bay contains a wooden confession box circa 1893. The next bay has a late 18th-century bombé-shaped altar table, gilt metal painted, and a very fine mahogany and gilt gradine and reredos with fixed tabernacle with inlaid door, late 18th century and said to be from another London Catholic chapel of that date. Also present is a carved painted statue of the Virgin above under a reused late 19th-century bed tester. The next bay has a carved wooden confessional box as above, and a fixed pulpit square on plan, of carved variegated marbles in neo-Renaissance style, attached to the wall with a neo-Renaissance carved mahogany backboard and tester, probably a gift of 1901 (inscription). The next bay has a fixed marble altar circa 1900 with a wooden statue of St John Bosco by Delapre, maker.

Interior: South Aisle

On the south side, from the first bay of the narthex, is a three-storey statuary marble altar to the Virgin with an elaborate reredos featuring Corinthian order supporting an elaborate pedimented and scrolled attic and marble statue of the Virgin of Lourdes, possibly a gift of 1892. The next bay has a fixed alabaster altar in High Victorian Gothic style with polychromatic frontal of stylised leaves, spars, etc. Above is a tripartite panel painting forming a shallow reredos below a fixed picture of Christ with Martha and Mary. All is contained under Ionic columns supporting a segmental pediment of late 18th-century date, the reredos of the altar from the 1793 church. The next bay has a fixed marble altar and reredos with columns supporting a segmental pediment with a fixed painting of St Joseph and the Christ Child and inscription recording dedication of the reredos in 1892. The next bay has a fixed wooden altar with an attached thin marble panel within an elaborate gilt frame featuring a central flaming Sacred Heart against a sunburst, late 18th century from the gallery of the previous church. A reredos of plinth supporting semi-detached pairs of lotus columns supporting a triangular pediment, all late 18th century, completes the composition. A fixed painted wood statue of Christ by Mayer and Co. of Munich, circa 1860, stands here.

Also on the south side is a domed side chapel, square on plan, with no access available. This is dedicated to the Lady of Sorrows and is said to contain a Pietà by Theodore Phyffers, Sculptor, circa 1860.

Interior: Sanctuary

The sanctuary arch is expressed through two storeys with enriched compound Corinthian pilasters. The initial half-bay and apsed plan are lit from pairs of windows north and south but have no lighting at the east end. Stencilled lettered quotations appear in the frieze of the entablature and either side of a fixed marble panel of St Patrick in the attic storey. Gilt and green stencilled decoration adorns the coffer ceiling. Fixed marble communion rails in neo-Renaissance style feature a pair of gilt metal gates.

At sanctuary level the floor is laid in marble of Byzantine inspiration. A detached working altar is made from the mensa of the original high altar, which survives as a dwarf wall in the original position with a half reredos. Above the altar hangs an 18th-century picture of the Crucifixion after Van Dyck. Marble lining on the south and round the apse dates to circa 1930. Two doorcases of similar date incorporate the harp of Ireland in standard 18th-century classical design. In the north bay, a polished wood classical probably 18th-century organ case sits within its own niche. A single bank of fixed choir benches stands on the south.

Historical Significance

The existing building replaces a late 18th-century building adapted for Catholic worship and used since 1802, and retains late 18th-century Roman Catholic church monuments and altars of great rarity. The church has a strong claim to be the first Roman Catholic church in England dedicated to St Patrick, serving a large late 18th- and 19th-century Irish population in this part of London. The architects were among the unsuccessful competitors for the Brompton Oratory, and the Italian Renaissance style is comparatively rare for church architecture in the last decade of the 19th century.