Rc Church Of St Anthony Of Padua

RC CHURCH OF ST ANTHONY OF PADUA

This Roman Catholic church in Rye was built in 1927–9 and designed by architect JB Mendham for the Franciscan Order of Friars. The building is constructed in brown brick with smooth rendered entrance front and rear elevations, stone and tile dressings, pantiled roofs, and a copper-clad apse roof.

The church is planned as a five-bay aisled nave entered beneath a three-bay loggia. An octagonal tower with an octagonal tile roof surmounts the chancel, beneath which lies an apsidalsanctuary leading to narrow north and south bays arranged in the form of a Greek cross. At the rear are vestries overlooking terraced gardens. To the south stands a tall square campanile.

The entrance front features a three-bay loggia supported on stone shafts with enriched cushion capitals, flanked by tile-hung buttress piers. The entrance itself sits beneath a moulded architrave and swan-necked pediment, with a small niche above, and is flanked by round-headed windows. A large round-arched west window rises above, set within a stone architrave with moulded shafts, beneath a flush tile arch and flanked by a Lombardic frieze. Narrow vertical lights flank this, with an encircled cross above. The eaves are of moulded brick and tile. The foundation stone is inscribed 'AMDG Oct 11th 1927'. The campanile is rendered at its bell stage with brick-lined openings framed by tile keys. The side elevations display pantiled aisles with round-arched windows and rectangular clerestorey windows featuring paired round-headed lights. Above these, detached, are alternating shallow triangular and segmental pediments. The tower carries a small round-headed window on each face and an octagonal slightly splayed roof topped by a cross. Short gabled north and south arms bear triple round-headed windows. The east end terminates in a hemispherical copper-clad apse, beneath which flat-roofed vestries have replaced original windows.

Internally, wall surfaces are smooth rendered, allowing the richer fittings to be prominent. The nave arcade comprises plain round arches supported on stone or stone composite shafts with carved and incised capitals, each bearing the Tau cross symbol used by St Francis in his writings. Cornices are moulded and aisle roofs are boarded over rafters. The nave roof features arch-braced trusses with a plain king post and struts, cusped principal rafters supported on slender wall posts resting on stone corbels, and exposed square-cut purlins over horizontal boarding. At the west end is a timber choir and organ gallery above a pair of doors leading to a porch with pointed-arched doorways to north and south and a small niche. At the eastern end of the aisles are side chapels: a Lady Chapel to the south and one dedicated to St Anthony to the north, each with a timber altar featuring a beaten copper front panel or shield. Over the sanctuary sits an octagonal dome lined horizontally in timber, supported on a smooth-sided octagonal drum with a small round-arched window on each face. Tall round arches, supported on stone shafts with rectangular capitals and bases, lead from each side of the sanctuary to shallow bays lit by three-light windows.

The altar rails, altar and pulpit are of veined marble, the altar enhanced by flush panels of deep red marble. Behind the now-detached altar, set forward on a plinth, stands an ornate aedicular canopy on twisted shafts. The tabernacle before it features beaten gilded doors. The altar rails carry brass gates with filigree panels. Above the altar hangs a Byzantine rood cross donated by Radclyffe Hall, author of the controversial novel 'The Well of Loneliness' (1928) and a former resident of Rye. The font is a hemispherical bowl set on enriched pink marble shafts. Internal doors are of stained pine, some with small upper glazed panels featuring rectangular leaded lights.

The church contains stained glass windows depicting St Anthony and St Michael, brought from the previous church. Triple sanctuary windows are dedicated to English martyrs and Franciscan saints. The nave is lined with Stations of the Cross. At the west end stands a war memorial in the form of a Calvary.

The church was built in 1927–9 to replace the church of St Walburga, constructed in 1900 when the Roman Catholic parish was restored. From 1906, Fr Bonaventure Scebberas OFM Conv arrived from Malta to restore the Franciscan community in Britain, beginning his work in Rye. By 1910 the parish church had come under Franciscan care, and by 1926 had become too small for both congregation and friars. The dedication changed when the new church was built, as St Walburga was not associated with the Franciscan Order. The design closely emulates Byzantine and early Christian Romanesque models.

John Bernard Mendham (1888–1951) was born in St Leonards on Sea but brought up in Buenos Aires, where his father worked as an engineer and where Mendham became familiar with Spanish colonial architecture. He served as surveyor and architect to the Bournville Village Trust before the First World War and worked in private practice in London from 1922 to 1939. Towards the end of his career he worked on Coventry Cathedral. He built several churches in Sussex, including the Roman Catholic church at Burgess Hill (1939). His drawings for St Anthony of Padua demonstrate his intentions from all angles in an inter-war interpretation of historical precedent.