Roman Catholic Church of St Michael, including boundary wall and entrance screen

Roman Catholic Church of St Michael

The Church of St Michael was built in phases between 1927 and 1960 to unified designs by Giles Gilbert Scott. The style is Italianate, drawing inspiration from Early Christian architecture, and is finished with a campanile tower, which was added around 1960, completing the extension that had been started in 1938. The church is oriented to the north-east, and all directions are given in liturgical terms. The original layout, detailing and fittings are generally intact, with a south porch added around 2006.

The church is built of thin, dark red Dutch bricks and has a roof covering of Italian pantiles. Windows are glazed with plain leaded lattice lights, subtly coloured.

The layout comprises a long nave with sanctuary forming a single vessel, narrow nave aisles, and north and south chapels positioned at right angles to the body of the building. Sacristies are located beneath the sanctuary. A modern south porch dates from 2006. To the east, accessed via the Lady Chapel, a set of steps leads to former priest's quarters consisting of two rooms.

The exterior is characterised by considerable bulk and height, tall sheer walls, and an impressively high clerestory with no external buttresses. The roofs have prominently overhanging eaves which dispense with the need for gutters. All fenestration is round-arched, with the clerestory windows being the most prominent, featuring tall three-light windows with a hemisphere set above a triple-opening arrangement. The tall, plain campanile has unadorned faces and culminates with small triple belfry lights and a low pyramidal capping. A parish centre is attached to the church at the east end, extending to the north-east and incorporating the original presbytery.

The interior is a long, uninterrupted space with walls covered in rough render that slope inwards slightly to counter the lateral thrust of the roof. The low-pitched tie-beam roof is delicately decorated in a style suggesting Swedish character. An organ gallery at the west end sits above a broad semi-circular arch. The sanctuary at the east end is raised high above the sacristies with fourteen steps in total, the first three of which were installed as part of the 2006 reordering. There are eight bays to the nave, with six easterly bays having low semi-circular arches to the narrow aisles. There are no mouldings or carved decoration, only very slight bulging where capitals might be expected. Only the twin columns in openings north and south of the sanctuary carry any decoration of spiral ornament and foliage. Sanctuary floor tiling dates from 2006, that in the nave from around 2010.

Fixtures and fittings include a large triptych reredos designed by Scott with figures of the Evangelists flanking a central canopy; the folding wings have multiple panels with triangular motifs. A series of fine wooden figures of saints stand on stone corbels between the nave piers, carved by Anton Daprè, an Austrian artist living in Twickenham, and his sons. The original font is octagonal stone with geometric decoration. The church retains unusually low, original sturdy bench seating. The forward altar and ambo are limestone and date from the 2006 works, incorporating carved panels by Stephen Foster. Original wrought-iron light fittings remain in the aisles (remaining in the nave until 2006). The organ was brought from a disused church in Egham, Surrey and rebuilt in 1974. A figure of St Michael by Anton Daprè stands opposite the main entrance, though it formerly surmounted the central part of the reredos. The Stations of the Cross are relatively conventional, executed in painted cast metal.

To the east of the church is a boundary wall and a well-proportioned entrance screen in red brick, the latter with a pantiled pitched roof, both forming part of Scott's composition.