Church Of St Elisabeth

The Church of St Elisabeth is a parish church constructed in 1935, designed by D Stonham and Son and A.R.G Fenning. It is built of red brick in English bond with Clipsham stone dressings and a tiled roof. The floor and roof trusses are made of pre-cast suspended reinforced concrete, with pitched roofs featuring light steel trusses and timber joists. The church has a wide nave with narrow aisles, and a choir and chancel of equal height. The east end includes a Lady Chapel to the north of the north transept, with an organ loft above, and a south transept with a library above, plus an attached bellcote. There are porches to the northwest and southwest of the narthex, which contains the baptistery, and north and south porches at the east end of the nave.

The tall west front has a gabled parapet and almost full-height, tapering brick buttresses. The west window is a traceried lancet with trefoil heads, with an arched west door flanked by side lancets and a gabled parapet. The aisles are punctuated by three tall lancets with traceried windows, divided by buttresses, and a narrow aisle with two triple casements and gabled porches. The north transept features a gable and mullioned windows. The south transept is similar, with a bellcote. The chancel has two traceried windows. The east end is largely blank, except for a triple mullioned window corresponding to a former basement classroom. There are two-storey, flat-roofed porches to the northeast and southeast.

The interior features arcade with Clipsham stone arches, an octagonal Clipsham stone font, and two Clipsham stone pulpits. It has a ribbed ceiling and unusual polygonal-shaped lights suspended from brackets. The transepts have arched openings at first floor level. A metal screen separates the Lady Chapel. Light oak pews furnish the nave and choir. The chancel floor is travertine marble, and a wrought iron altar rail is in place. Around the sanctuary is a series of fixed painted panels depicting scenes such as the Annunciation and the Baptism of Christ, in a pure Italian quattrocento style, signed E.W. Tristram, 1938. He was recognized as the leading authority on English Medieval wall paintings and their conservation.

A basement room contains a sequence of painted murals depicting the Pilgrim’s Progress in a free expression style, created by Hans Feibusch in 1944. These murals are considered to be of special historic interest.