Catholic Apostolic Church and Church House

The Catholic Apostolic Church and Church House were built between 1891 and 1893 by J.L. Pearson. The church is constructed of red brick with ashlar dressings and tiled roofs, and is accompanied by a detached caretaker’s house to the north. The church is in the Victorian Gothic style and comprises a four-bay aisled nave, a narrower bay, and a centrally-projecting apsidal baptistery to the west. Further features include a crossing with transepts, a two-bay chancel, an apse, an ambulatory, and north and south chapels; the south chapel has narrow aisles and an apse. A detached tower adjoins the south-west angle of the nave.

The west front of the church has a deep arched recess, rising to the level of the nave vault, containing two four-light windows with Geometrical tracery and a plate tracery roundel above. The recess is flanked by the projecting walls of the nave, which rise to octagonal turrets with spirelets. Decorative arcading appears on the gable end, and canopied niches are on the flanking walls. The apsidal baptistery, containing lancet windows, projects from the centre of the recess, situated below a gallery. Triple-arcaded porches contain entrances to the west end of each aisle.

Inside the nave, bays are divided by pilaster buttresses. Two-light windows with quatrefoils in plate tracery are set under a continuous dripmould, with lancets to the narrow bays. A corbel table is present. To the south transept end is a six-light window with a wheel window and cinquefoil above, featuring sunk quatrefoils in the spandrels. A four-light window with Y-tracery and roundels is to the gable end. The chancel has lancet windows, pilaster buttresses, and a continuous dripmould, and the chapels to the north and south are separately roofed.

The Church House is two storeys and an attic high, with a gable facing the street. It features flanking buttresses and mullion and transom windows with arched lights and dripmoulds. A two-light pointed window is to the gable.

The church interior has an elevation of two storeys with elaborately moulded arches on clustered columns with moulded capitals. There are quadripartite vaults on triple shafts which rise from the floor, and a deeply splayed clerestory. The south chapel has slender clustered columns on waterholding bases with moulded capitals.