Former Pro-Cathedral Of The Holy Apostles

Former Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Apostles

This former Roman Catholic pro-cathedral, later used as a school, stands on Park Place in Clifton. It was begun around 1834 to designs by HH Goodridge for Bishop Baines, but construction stalled and work ceased in 1845 after the foundations shifted, leading to bankruptcy. The interior and roof were subsequently completed by C Hansom in 1848, and the building was partly refaced and extended between 1870 and 1876, also by Hansom.

The original 1834 work is executed in Greek Revival style using Bath stone ashlar. The 1870 alterations and extensions employ Northern Italian Gothic Revival style and are built in Pennant rubble for the extension, with a slate roof throughout.

The building comprises an arcaded nave and transept, with a schoolroom range across the west end. The 1834 north elevation features six bays articulated by column shafts with entasis leading to overhanging eaves, with banded walls between pierced by semicircular-arched windows added around 1870. A flat-headed window to the transept has an architrave and console sill blocks. The south elevation is similar, with a basement containing windows with pilaster jambs to recessed lintels. A rendered 20th-century range sits above this, and three doorways to the transept are fitted with architraves.

The east end is obscured by ivy and the adjacent Bishop's Palace. The circa 1870 west end displays a single-storey, six-bay elevation with raised gables at each end containing semicircular arches on paired Pennant stone columns. The alternate voussoirs are carved with Zodiacal symbols beneath cartouches held by angels. The left gable features a deeply-set eight-light wheel window with trefoil heads in a moulded architrave, above a semicircular-arched doorway with three orders to stiff leaf capitals and a panelled door. The right gable has a weathered sill and three deeply-set semicircular-arched windows with a round panel above containing a Tudor head. The centre presents a weathered sill band, a chevron band above, and a machicolated frieze to the parapet, with paired semicircular-arched windows separated by pilaster strips. The right return has a gable identical to the front, supported by 20th-century props, with a tympanum carved with a New Testament scene and darker limestone alternate voussoirs. The nave gable rises with a central section divided by plain square buttresses, a panelled band across the raking aisles, a central blind round window with twelve round panels above, and brackets supporting a tripartite balcony with a central arch; the gable parapet features blind semicircular arches on thick columns.

The interior contains a nine-bay nave with timber posts supporting semicircular arches spanning between and across the aisles and nave, and a clerestory arcade running along the nave. A Gothic ashlar reredos rises behind the raised chancel. The narthex has central tripartite arches with round columns topped by crocket capitals and a carved relief frieze, three blind arches on each side, and a tiled floor. The schoolroom includes a flight of steps from the entrance rising to a gallery above the full-width hall. A brick vaulted crypt lies beneath.

Historically, the original design by Goodridge was conceived as a large Classical temple overlooking the city, with pedimented ends and Corinthian columns. Foundations were laid in 1834, but when they shifted in 1845, work ceased and bankruptcy followed. Hansom then constructed a lightweight timber church built onto the half-finished columns using "shipbuilding principles". His 1870 design for completion included a Lombardic reworking of the west end along the sides to the transepts and a southwest campanile in the same manner. The building across the west end was intended as a schoolroom, while the Gothic Revival house at the east end was designed as a Bishop's Palace.