Church Of St Aloysius (Roman Catholic)

Church of St Aloysius (Roman Catholic)

A Roman Catholic church designed in 1875 by J A Hansom, with G Myers and Sons of Lambeth as builder. The church is in French Gothic style.

The building is constructed in yellow brick laid in Flemish bond with some red brick, including a band of red brick to the west end, and stone dressings. The roof is slated, above a brick dentil cornice.

The church follows a longitudinal plan with an aisled nave, an apsidal sanctuary, and side chapels. It is aligned west to east, with entry from the east and the sanctuary to the west.

The west elevation is dominated by a large rose window with plate tracery set within a pointed-arched recess. Below is a blind arcade of pointed arches with triangular arches above. At the north corner stands a polygonal stair turret with a conical roof above a stage of lancet windows. Entry is through a gabled porch with an archway of three orders; the tympanum originally held a statue of St Aloysius, later replaced with a statue of Jesus as the Good Shepherd following vandalism. The other principal elevations feature regularly spaced shallow offset buttresses. Between these are paired pointed windows of the clerestory with trefoil tracery, on the south side above projecting sacristy and side chapels, and on the north side above the blank wall enclosing the north aisle. A stone arch filled with brick at the west end of the north elevation is considered evidence that Hansom planned an extension.

The five-bay nave interior has a pointed tunnel vault with timber panelling. The church is lit by tall clerestory windows. Pointed arches separate the nave and aisles, with the arcades having square piers bearing colonnettes of red marble and black marble with stiff leaf capitals. Slender engaged shafts of black marble rise between the arches to the roof, with further colonnettes flanking the clerestory windows. Much of the black marble is simulated, though the marble in the sanctuary is real. At the north-east end of the nave, attached to the north-east pier, is a stone and marble pulpit of 1888 by Farmer & Brindley, featuring figures in trefoil-headed niches. The nave retains carved wooden pews with quatrefoil panels.

The sanctuary has been recently restored with coloured paintwork and gilding following the original scheme. It is separated from the nave by marble altar rails forming an arcade with Caernarfon capitals; the gates are iron with brass plates cut with the 'IHS' monogram and fleur-de-lys. The lower part of the sanctuary is floored with geometric tiling, the upper part timber, separated by low marble walls with iron railings decorated with scrolling foliate brass. At the east end is a stone tabernacle shelf at the former altar position. The reredos, dating from 1878 by Farmer & Brindley, curves around the east end of the sanctuary. It features 52 niches holding statues of saints in two registers flanking a canopied monstrance throne, with a row of angels holding banners bearing the word 'Sanctus' above, and twenty roundels with busts below the apse windows extending beyond the apse. Below the reredos north and south are credence tables, each resting on a single marble column within an arched recess. At the centre of the sanctuary is a black marble altar given by Lord Bute in 1878, moved and shortened in 1966. The choir stalls are carved with 'IHS' and 'ADMG' (Ad maiorem Dei gloriam – the Jesuit motto meaning 'For the greater glory of God'). Between the sanctuary and side chapels are traceried stone screens.

The Lady Chapel to the south, recently restored, contains a marble altar brought in 2007 from St Benet's Hall, Oxford, and a statue of the Virgin Mary by Mayer & Co of Munich given in 1876. The glass in the chapel is by Hardman of Birmingham. The Sacred Heart Chapel to the north contains a timber altar and reredos carved with blind tracery and formerly painted (possibly by Pippet, who provided lost painted decoration around 1902). The Sacred Heart statue by Mayer & Co, now placed on the reredos, replaces a painting but was originally within the chapel. A small piscina is in the south wall.

The eastern chapel in the south aisle was originally dedicated to St Joseph but was redecorated in May 1992 in honour of St Philip Neri, founder of the first Oratory in Rome; a copy of Guido Reni's painting of St Philip hangs above the altar. To the west is the Relic Chapel, recently restored with a painted decorative scheme by Hardman from 1907. The wrought iron screen comes from the Carmelite convent at Chichester. The chapel contains a statue of St Aloysius Gonzaga, replacing the original.

At the west end of the south aisle is a small shrine to John Henry Newman installed in 2010. The Stations of the Cross, designed by Basil Champneys, are carved in alabaster and were brought from the Convent of the Holy Child Jesus, Cherwell Edge. The south aisle also contains a war memorial and an alabaster memorial tablet to Philippa Fletcher (died 1914), both with relief carving by Pippet. In the narrow north aisle is a shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes installed in 1954. At the west end of the church beneath the organ gallery are two 1977 murals by E Percival depicting St Edmund Campion and St Aloysius Gonzaga. The stone font is lavishly carved with a canopy of ogival arches sheltering animated scenes in high relief from the Old and New Testaments. An engraved marble holy water stoup was given by the Paravicini family in memory of Fr Gerard Manley Hopkins.

A church forecourt is entered from Woodstock Road through an archway with low flanking walls dating from 1925. The archway has a triangular top with offset buttresses to either side. The arch itself is pointed with two orders resting on corbels; above is a Crucifixion relief by Gabriel Pippet with the words 'SANCTUS IMMORTALIS MISERERE NOBIS' (Holy immortal one, have mercy on us). In 1987 the opening was widened, with the lower part of the inmost order removed and the archway corbelled out. Wrought iron gates dating from 1991 correspond with low railings with twisted uprights completing the flanking walls.