Roman Catholic Church Of The Sacred Heart

The Roman Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart is a church built in 1936 by A.S.G. Butler. It is constructed of Flemish bond red brick with freestone dressings and features a clay plain tile roof with brick parapeted gables. The layout includes a nave with a west entrance under a gallery, a north aisle, a chancel with an integral tower above, and a chapel at the angle with the north aisle. There is also a presbytery attached to the south side. The architectural style is Arts and Crafts Gothic.

On the exterior, the west end has a pointed-arch doorway with a carved wooden tympanum and a statue niche above, flanked by tall two-light pointed-arch windows. The south side features three brick buttresses that rise through the eaves and two pointed-arch traceried windows that are truncated below the tracery. The north aisle has a parapeted roof with three three-light windows with straight heads, buttresses in between, a gallery stair in the northwest angle, and a gabled chapel in the northeast angle adjacent to the chancel. The large east tower, which is integral to the chancel, has parapeted cross-gables and a small open-work metal spire topped with a cross. The tower also has a large five-light east window with reticulated tracery and tall straight-headed lancets on the north and south sides.

Inside, the church has rendered walls with stone dressings. The three-bay north arcade lacks capitals and features shafts that rise to the roof, with metal trusses sheathed in wood. The gallery at the west end has a panelled front and a late 20th-century organ. The chancel contains a fine altar, with spire niches designed by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, and a flanking reredos by Edward Welby Pugin. The mensa may also be by Edward Welby Pugin, and the sculpture was likely done by Lane and Lewis of Birmingham. The east window features stained glass by John Hardman. Other fittings by Pugin include the pulpit. The Pugin work was originally from the private Catholic chapel at Danesfield, near Marlow, Buckinghamshire, which was built between 1850 and 1853 and demolished around 1901.