Our Lady Of Grace And St Edward Roman Catholic Church

Our Lady of Grace and St Edward Roman Catholic Church

This Roman Catholic church stands on a corner site fronting Chiswick High Road and is built in the Italian Renaissance style. It was designed by John Kelly of Kelly & Birchall and opened in 1886.

The church is constructed of very fine quality dark red brickwork in English bond and terracotta, with extensive use of moulded and rubbed brick. The later tower is built in a quite different shade of brown brick. The main roof is of pantiles incorporating ventilators, while the aisle roofs are concealed behind cornice parapets.

The church follows a basilica plan, rectangular in form without an apse but with a stepped side wall. Because of its corner location, it is orientated north/south rather than in the traditional liturgical east/west alignment. It comprises an aisled nave and chancel with terminating altars, vestibules at the liturgical west and north, a northeast bell-tower, and a former sacristy to the southeast.

All elevations are ornamented with Renaissance detail in moulded and rubbed brick and terracotta, especially rich to the west front and plainer at the east. A notable feature is the blind lower window range, clearly designed as such, with moulded surrounds and panels of a lighter hue with very fine pale joints. All windows are rectangular with finely moulded surrounds, with cornices to the narrow windows, and the glazing is plain rectangular quarries.

The fine west front of two storeys has a symmetrical continuous five-bay lower storey entrance frontage: three bays to the nave breaking forward very slightly with narrower bays flanking the doorway, and one bay to each aisle. Each bay has one blind window and the bays are articulated by paired shallow pilasters with Corinthian capitals which are joined by a frieze with festoon swags linked by winged cherub-heads. Above is a deep plain coved entablature extending at the same level round the whole exterior. At the centre is the main doorway with a deep segmental pediment containing terracotta moulded symbols of the papal crown and keys of St Peter, separate from the moulded architrave; the double panelled doors are set back. Above is the three-bay west front to the nave clerestory with similar ornament. The central window is flanked by narrow empty round-arched niches of matching depths, with brackets, pilasters and cornices. A similar upper entablature/cornice with shallow pediment incorporates an oculus. The building has a moulded plinth.

The north side has seven clerestory bays separated by single pilasters, with the deep coved eaves entablature/cornice continuous with the front. The north aisle elevation is stepped forward in four sections, allowing for an internal altar recess, a side entrance and altar, and the base of the bell-tower. The east elevation is quite plain except for the two deep cornices and an oculus in the pediment. The south elevation is similar to the north with a narrower southwest doorway having a moulded surround, cornice, and set back double panelled doors, but at the east it has a small separately roofed single storey attached chapel, the former sacristy, entered externally from a passage along the south side and internally from the south aisle.

The three-storey bell-tower has a deep plinth with cornice incorporated into that of the main building, a tall shaft with corner pilasters, slit staircase lights, cross-framed windows towards the top, and an open belfry with wide round-headed arches to each face and a pyramidal roof. At its base is a pedimented plaque with an inscription in English and Latin: "The Catholic pastors and people of Chiswick laboured to build this tower to the glory of God and in honourable memory of all brave and faithful men who died for the country during the Great War especially those who were members of this parish or boys in its schools."

The interior is plastered and painted with contrasting whites for the walls and red for the ceiling, with gilded or gold painted ornament. The nave and chancel form a single unit with the same coffered ceiling, separated by a high round arch whose keystone is at ceiling level and rises from the elaborate entablature/cornice which separates the storeys. Supporting the entablature/cornice along its full lateral length are Corinthian columns of the side aisles, four columns each side to the nave and two bays to the chancel, with antae to the chancel arch and clustered pilasters at the east end, all with gilded capitals and panelled soffits. In the chancel the entablature has a narrow shallow-relief frieze with neo-classical motifs.

The east end has a shallow central projecting bay forming a reredos with a tall marble round-arched panel breaking through the cornice with an open segmental pediment hood, a rather unusual arrangement, with flanking gilded panels. The chancel has coloured marble furnishings including the altar, plinth below the reredos, pulpit, and low altar rail with red marble vase balusters, and a black and white marble floor. The clerestory windows are separated by pilasters with gilded Corinthian capitals which extend round the windowless east end.

The chancel is separated from the east aisles by wooden screens with big square fluted columns with Corinthian capitals, continuous cornice and panelled plinth. Each aisle terminates in an altar of coloured marble with wooden reredos, relatively plain. Painted statues flank the chancel arch. The bays of the windowless aisle walls are defined by pilasters.

The west gallery contains the organ with a 20th-century case in classical style. There is good quality woodwork comprising a panelled gallery front incorporating a clock, four tapered wooden columns, a central panelled double entrance door and a series of panelled confessionals along the west wall. Pew backs also are panelled. There is a panelled pulpit at the north. The nave and aisles have parquet flooring. Pendant lighting hangs from iron coronae. A marble altar of coloured marble stands in a recess on the north side, possibly that referred to in an account of 1926. Along the side walls is a set of framed copies of 14 paintings of the Stations of the Cross, from 16th-century originals in Antwerp, their installation pre-dating the 20th-century refurbishment. The former sacristy has been converted to a chapel.

Some changes have taken place since 1926: the organ was formerly adjacent to the chancel; the chancel formerly had a domed tabernacle with canopy; the wooden chancel screens incorporated decorative ironwork; a copy of a Murillo painting formed the reredos with another painted altarpiece to a side altar; and the coffered ceiling was paler in hue. Most of the existing furnishings, except perhaps the side altar, seem to date from the later 20th century.

The present church stands on the site of an earlier church built in 1864 for a small local congregation. Its site was enlarged by land donated by the Duke of Devonshire, whose residence of Chiswick House was nearby, in response to the need for a larger building to serve the growing Catholic community. The present church was opened in 1886 by Cardinal Manning and reflects the revived interest in the Roman outward forms of Catholicism.

The original exterior design, illustrated in The Architect of 1887, is somewhat more elaborate than that constructed, with figurative sculpture shown in the niches and pediments and some enrichment to the blind window panels, and a tall bell-tower with cupola at the northeast. The intention was to add these features as funds allowed. Messrs Priestly and Gurney of Hammersmith were the contractors for the works. The bricks were supplied by Messrs Lawrence of Bracknell and the rubbed brick capitals were carved by Joseph Cribb.

Following the First World War the campanile was built to an amended design by Sir Giles G. Scott in 1930 to commemorate parishioners killed in the First World War. A Second World War air-raid of 1944 caused substantial damage: the east wall (liturgical north) took the full force of the explosion and needed substantial repair. The interior also was damaged and was repaired and remodelled in 1953 by D Plaskett Marshall. The original altar was the gift of the Oratorian Fathers of South Kensington. A photograph of 1928 shows the building closely surrounded by swept iron railings and an elaborate iron gate to the main entrance; current railings are unadorned replacements.

John Kelly, the church architect, was born in Scarborough and had at one time a practice in Leeds. He also worked with GE Street and JD Sedding and later practised in London. He built a number of Roman Catholic churches including St Patrick's Soho Square and St Agatha's Kings Road, and was one of the unsuccessful competitors for the Brompton Oratory. The presbytery adjacent, separately listed, is a pair of Georgian houses acquired in 1931.