Church of the Sacred Heart

The Church of the Sacred Heart is a Roman Catholic church, dating from 1881 to 1897, and designed by Peter Paul Pugin and Cuthbert Pugin. It is the only surviving building of the former Convent of the Visitation, originally founded in France in 1610, and later established in Walmer in 1875 after a Polish branch of the order was expelled from France and Germany. The remainder of the convent was demolished in 1982.

The church is constructed of stock brick with stone dressings and a slate roof. It comprises a vestibule, a three-bay nave and a three-bay chancel in a single range, a south transept, a south-west tower, and a west porch. The west front features a gable with stone coping, a cross-shaped saddlestone, and kneelers, along with a triple lancet window. A brick porch with a large arch, dripmould, double doors, and steps to the street is located at the front. The tower rises in three stages with a slate pyramidal roof and a metal cross-shaped finial. It features stone fretted balustrading with gargoyle waterspouts and machicolations. The bell stage has two trefoil openings with wooden louvres, while the central stage contains a stone niche with crocket and a statue of the Virgin and Child, flanked by trefoil lancets. Buttresses support the structure. The south side has three lancets and a gabled transept with kneelers and a rose window. Originally, a nuns' choir was attached to the north side, where there are now two lancet windows. The east front has a gable with a cross-shaped saddlestone, kneelers and a triple lancet window with trefoil heads, the centre being higher than the others.

Inside, the bell tower houses a bell made in Hildesheim in 1757 by Chris. Aug. Becker. The vestibule has a wooden roof and screen with three lancets. The nave features an arch-braced roof supported on stone corbels and five stained-glass windows depicting the Good Shepherd, the Immaculate Conception, St Michael and the Two Labourers in the Vineyard, Tobias and the Angel, and an unknown bishop saint. Seven rows of pews and an original tiled floor remain. A rose window on the south side depicts Christ in Majesty with St Francis de Sales and St Jane Frances de Chantal, the founder and foundress of the Order of the Visitation. The original altar has four marble colonnettes, three panels depicting the Sacred Heart flanked by Angels, a carved stone reredos with six trefoil-headed marble panels, and a marble feature with a brass cupboard containing the Eucharist under an elaborate octagonal canopy with marble columns and stone gables with angels rising from the bases.