Church of St Thomas of Canterbury and the English Martyrs

Church of St Thomas of Canterbury and the English Martyrs

A Roman Catholic parish church built in 1889 by architect Charles Alban Buckler, with builder Edmund Boniface. The interior decorative scheme was executed between 1908 and 1911 by Nathaniel Westlake. The church is constructed of rock-faced ironstone with Bath stone dressings and a slate roof, and is designed in the Gothic style.

The plan is unusual, with the sanctuary facing west rather than east. It comprises a six-bay nave with six side chapels to the north and south, a narthex to the east, a mortuary chapel to the south east (added later), and an apsidal chancel flanked by apsidal chapels.

The exterior features lancet windows to the nave. The east end (ritual west end) has a tall three-light lancet flanked by single lancets and divided by buttresses. A lean-to narthex and gabled south east porch with trefoil-headed niche, kneelers and arched doorcases with dripmoulding are present. Further to the west is the gabled end of the former mortuary chapel. The west end (ritual east end) has a blocked trefoil window in the gable, with a lower apsidal chancel flanked by small apsidal chapels. An attached presbytery is not of special interest.

The interior contains a broad nave with timber quadripartite rib vaults on shafts and short tunnel vaulted side chapels, creating the effect of a nave arcade. The east end windows were replaced following Second World War damage. An elaborate carved wooden organ loft with trefoil decoration is supported on columns with arched heads featuring quatrefoil decoration. Original pews remain in the nave.

The side chapels have arched heads, painted ceilings and elaborate stencilled walls, mostly renewed. St Leonard's Chapel contains a fine alabaster altar with central tabernacle flanked by statues of saints. St George's Chapel features stained glass windows in the style of Hardman and Co. and a painted figure of St Michael by Westlake. An original octagonal marble font with colonnettes and carved scenes of the seven sacraments, resited from the east end, stands in front of the chancel arch on the left. To the right is an original stone and pink marble octagonal pulpit with carvings of saints within trefoil-headed niches, missing its columnar base.

The chancel arch is covered in wall paintings by Westlake depicting the Company of English Martyrs, with the Hand of God obscuring the earlier trefoil window. The Lady Chapel to the south of the chancel arch has stencilled walls and an elaborate Bath stone altar with angels crowning the Virgin and Child. St Joseph's Chapel to the north of the chancel arch has stencilled decoration and an elaborate Bath stone altar with statues of the Holy Family under a baldachino and a panel depicting the Entombment. The chancel ceiling is covered with Westlake paintings of Evangelists and Prophets, and there is an elaborate reredos of angels painted on copper plates under cinquefoil-headed pointed canopies. The south wall has a painted Nativity scene and the north side a painted Last Supper, a memorial to the 14th Duke of Norfolk.

History

A significant Roman Catholic community at St Leonard's began in 1834 with the purchase of land by priest John Jones using a legacy from Barbara, Lady Stanley of Puddington. In 1848 the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, a recently founded teaching order of nuns under Mother Connelly, was installed and a church begun. A dispute between the convent and parish over ownership led the parish to relocate to a site further up Magdalen Road, positioned over a railway tunnel.

The foundation stone of the first church of St Thomas of Canterbury was laid on 21 August 1865 and it opened on 24 May 1866, designed by Charles Alban Buckler. This building was destroyed by fire on 3 January 1887, leaving only charred walls. The present building was commenced on 30 March 1888, also designed by Charles Alban Buckler. Unusually, the chancel faces west. The church opened in July 1889 but was not consecrated until 1907. The mortuary chapel was not part of the original build.

The interior decorative scheme by Nathaniel Westlake (1833-1921), executed between 1908 and 1911, blocked an original trefoil window above the chancel arch. By 1945 some murals had deteriorated due to water penetration and were restored in the 1950s by the local firm Pettit Bros., with work by Gerald and Douglas Padgham who also created new stencils.

In the 1980s the interior underwent virtually complete restoration, with major work on the mural on canvas to the chancel arch carried out by Charles Camm. Much of the stencilling was also redone at this time.