Church Of St Paul, With West Wing

Church of St Paul, with West Wing

This Grade I listed building comprises a chapel to a Roman Catholic college and an adjoining west wing to the mansion at Prior Park. The complex was begun in 1735 by architect John Wood, with Richard Jones as his Clerk of Works. The church itself was constructed between 1844–1856 and 1872–1882, designed by Joseph Scoles and his son Alexander Joseph Cory Scoles. The west wing was raised by Jones to accommodate further storeys for Bishop Baines' college accommodation.

The domestic range is constructed in limestone ashlar with slate and concrete tile roofing. It extends for four storeys across seventeen bays, with the centre three bays stepped boldly forward and pedimented. The two lower floors are fully rusticated. The fenestration throughout consists of glazing bar sashes: the ground floor features arched heads with radial bars, while upper floors have six-pane windows above twelve-pane lights in architraves with cornices. The centre section is articulated with a central Palladian window. Below this are small six-pane arched lights with twelve-pane lower sashes having nine panes. A centre pair of panelled doors in a pilaster doorcase with heavy brackets supports a small balcony with balustrade. A tetrastyle unfluted Doric portico, set flush, rises above the doors. Each side of the portico has one bay brought forward with single sashes at each level on the returns. The elevations are finished with a plain two-stage plinth, frieze band, and modillion cornice with a high plain parapet above the first floor, and full entablature with blocking course and parapet. The pediment contains a clock face, a twentieth-century memorial. A deep, narrow stack rises to the left. The left return features a central Palladian window, and a ground floor bay with balustrade over an arched sash. A set-back range with quadrants and piers is connected to the Lodge at the main gates. The north side of the range is similarly detailed in seventeen bays with comparable fenestration, including a central pedimented section with a Palladian window. The lowest level is rusticated, but single-storey, with large twelve-pane sashes and an extra bay to the right, set below a modillion cornice and blocking-band with balustrade. Small square cast-iron louvred vents inscribed "Sanatorium" are positioned beneath some of the lowest windows.

The Church of St Paul, which replaced an earlier structure including a porte-cochere, comprises a nave with organ gallery, apsidal sanctuary, side aisles, and chapels on the north side. The church is boldly detailed in ten bays. On the south or entrance side, single bays at each end are brought forward, with that to the left featuring a high attic. The lowest level on the south side forms a podium brought forward and covering a passageway, with deep-set arched lights with radial bars in stone beneath an entablature with modillion cornice. The north side is plain at this level with piers and a lofty pair of plank doors with fanlight on three steps at the west end. The first floor displays wide lights with leaded glazing in moulded architraves and pediments on brackets, under horizontal sunk panels. The first bay above the doorway is articulated with three-quarter Corinthian columns, while remaining bays have plain pilasters with blocked-out capitals without carving, below an entablature with modillion cornice. The main entrance features panelled doors in a vermiculated rusticated surround with a key. Clerestory lunettes are set back behind the parapet. The central vessel rises with plain walling to a dentil eaves course, to coped gables with a terminal cross to the west. The apse is detailed with a leaded semi-dome carrying a painted wooden lantern with balustraded lights. Three domes rise over the side chapels on the north side.

The interior is accessed from the main entrance through a long passage to the right and to a west lobby or narthex, with central west doors and north-south doors in the westernmost nave bay. An eight-bay nave is divided from narrow aisles by giant fluted Corinthian columns on high podia, linked by stone balustrades and carrying a richly modelled modillion cornice, with compartmental barrel-vaults in bays featuring leaded lunettes penetrating the vault. Responds to aisle walls are articulated. A light-weight gallery with organ occupies the west end, and the east features an apsidal sanctuary with a panelled semi-dome beyond a single bay with pedimented doorcases under an open arched gallery with balustrade. The aisles are raised on two steps; to the south they are enclosed with pilasters and blind arcading with panels and a series of carved Stations of the Cross, while to the north they open to a series of side chapels, three of which are lit by domes with lanterns. At the west end, full-height pilasters defining the end bay feature uncut blocked capitals, but at the junction between the nave and sanctuary they are fully detailed and fluted, with single and paired attached pilasters in the apse. A stone balustrade on three steps encloses the chancel, with the sanctuary altar podium of three steps. Doors throughout are hardwood panelled. The fittings include plain polished pews with scrolled ends and a marble main altar on the chord of the apse, with a secondary wooden altar table set forward.

Construction was begun under Joseph Scoles but, as was not uncommon in the development of the college, insufficient funds led to delays, with the building standing roofless for many years before work resumed under Scoles' son Alexander. The church was only brought to completion in 1882. Reliefs depicting scenes from the life of Saints Peter and Paul were never carved, nor were the Corinthian capitals to the pilasters. The projected bell towers were never constructed. The church has been described by Nikolaus Pevsner as "the most impressive church interior of its date in the country". It stands as an outstanding display of revived English Catholicism, realising Bishop Baines's vision of a triumphant church overlooking the city. The design was inspired by Jean-François Chalgrin's Parisian Church of Saint-Philippe du Roule (1768–84), itself a neoclassical homage to the great basilica churches of early Christian Rome. Despite its monumentally scaled form, the church has never been completed in detail.