Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart

Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart

This is a Roman Catholic church designed in 1889 by Albert Vicars in pointed Gothic style. It was built for the Passionist Fathers at the expense of Dionysius and Catherine Broderick.

The church is constructed of coursed Kentish Ragstone with freestone dressings and window tracery. The roofs are Welsh slate with cross-shaped saddle stones to the gable ends.

The building has a tall aisled five-bay nave and two-bay chancel under a continuous pitched roof, with a west porch and the adjoining base of an intended south-west tower. There is a north transeptal sacristy.

The west front features a lean-to porch across the nave with twin pointed arched doors. Above is a large four-light arched window with elaborate tracery of trefoils, circles and a sexfoil. Projecting to the south-west is the base of the intended tower with an arched two-light window. Exposed brickwork at the south-west angle of the nave shows where the tower was to be attached. The west end of the north aisle has a two-light window with trefoiled heads and motif above.

The north and south walls each have seven bays, divided by pilaster strips to the clerestory and buttresses to the aisles. The first five bays form the nave, which has lean-to aisles on both sides with three-light traceried windows with trefoils and smaller similar windows to the clerestory. The sixth and seventh windows on the north side comprise a gabled transept containing a sacristy within the width of the aisle. This has a triple window to the upper floor, two two-light windows with Caernarvon arches under relieving arches to the ground floor, an arched doorcase with a drip-mould and two stepped lancet windows above. The south side is similar but the westernmost bay of the aisle has a penticed projection with three quatrefoil windows lighting confessional boxes.

The eastern end has unfinished brickwork where a link block to the presbytery was intended. The east end has a large rose window with elaborate tracery but the base is unfinished brickwork.

Interior

The porch floor is tiled. The north and south aisle arcades have five bays with wide pointed chamfered arches carried on cylindrical stone columns with moulded capitals and bases. The nave has a canted and boarded timber roof with principal arch-braced trusses carried down onto marble wall shafts. The aisle roofs have exposed timbers with the main beams braced down onto the spandrels of the nave arcades.

The western end bay to the south aisle has three arched openings into confessional boxes. At the west end of the nave is a timber organ gallery supported on six carved wooden columns. The organ pipes remain but the organ has been removed.

The marble stoup between the twin west porch doors is dedicated to the founders of the church. The timber benches are original; some of the carved Stations of the Cross on the aisle walls are dated 1907. The base of the intended south-west tower contains an octagonal marble font supported on colonnettes with an octagonal wooden font cover with brass fittings.

There is no chancel arch. The sanctuary extends for two bays east of the nave, and the first of these bays has blind pointed arches on each side carried down to the ground. The side altars are situated directly at the end of the nave aisles. Both the high altar and the side altars have elaborate carved stone and marble reredos, with the high altar additionally incorporating a marble tabernacle. A walkway was intended between the high altar and the rose windows and one arched opening survives on the north side. The rose window contains stained glass depicting Christ in Majesty amongst angels and saints. The north wall has an aumbry and the south wall a piscina. The original central altar was brought forward in the sanctuary as part of a re-ordering.