Roman Catholic Church of St John the Evangelist

Roman Catholic Church of St John the Evangelist, Brentford

This is a mid-Victorian brick church built in 1866 to designs by Mr Jackman, about whom little is known. It is distinguished by a distinctive squat tower and contains remnants of early work by J F Bentley.

The church is constructed of buff stock brick with polychrome detailing and a slated roof. The plan comprises a nave with a north aisle, accessed through a narthex which is reached by a later south porch. The original entrance was located in the tower, which sits at the north-west corner. The sanctuary is three-sided, with a sacristy located to the south-east. A box-like projection to the south contains confessionals.

The most striking exterior feature is the tower, which is squat and sits flush with the west gable, with a slight batter. An angle buttress marks the exposed corner. At the top, the corners are chamfered off to align with the chamfered facets of the slated spire arrangement above. This rises in two stages with open-work timber arcading halfway up, carrying a regularly shaped octagonal spirelet with concave sides. On the west face sits a pointed-arched niche containing a statue of St John the Evangelist, beneath a trefoil-pierced timber gablet which breaks the eaves line. The main body of the church is also slate-roofed, with a visible break in the angle between the nave and aisle. The fenestration chiefly consists of paired, cusped lights with polychrome voussoirs to the arches. Those to the west are set in pointed-arched recesses, indicating the position of former entrance openings. The sanctuary is lit by a trefoil window set into a steep gablet with timber bargeboards.

Entry is via the west porch into the narthex, which contains a cast-iron spiral staircase to the gallery and is separated from the nave by a panelled timber screen. The wide nave is separated from the north aisle by an arcade of five bays comprising slender octagonal iron shafts over high bases. The tops of the shafts support tripartite curvilinear braces which in turn carry a purlin decorated with cusped piercing, spanning the junction of the nave and aisle roofs. The roof structure is composed of thin members with an arch-braced collar above supporting curved struts, all reinforced with slender iron tie-rods.

Work was ongoing at the time of inspection in 2015 to reinstate decorative interior schemes in the sanctuary, based on evidence of original painted and stencilled detailing revealed during investigative works around 2011. The sanctuary has been reordered and has a woodblock floor inlaid with geometric patterns.

A glazed and timber screen at the west end between the narthex and nave was designed by J F Bentley (recently restored) in a somewhat conventional Perpendicular design. Stained glass in the north aisle dates from 1883-84 and appears to be the work of Lavers and Westlake. Bentley designed the window nearest the Lady altar, depicting St John administering communion to the Virgin at her Coronation, with the painter being N H J Westlake, as indicated by an inscription along the lower panel. The trefoil in the east window (St John) is by Paul Woodroffe, possibly of 1903. At the east end of the north aisle is a Victorian altar with carved Gothic detail. Other statuary and stations are conventional, including the Sacred Heart and Our Lady, whose shrines terminate each end of the north aisle, and St Anthony and St John, located to the centre of the north aisle.