Roman Catholic Church of St Bernadette

Roman Catholic Church of St Bernadette

A Roman Catholic church built in 1967-8, designed by James Leask of Kenneth Nealon, Tanner & Partners, with main contractors Wilkins & Coventry Ltd of Bristol.

The building is constructed of reinforced concrete shell roofs and piers with red brick flank and rear walls in stretcher bond. The cavity walls have an inner skin of insulating blocks. Large sections of toughened glass form the narthex. The roofs are covered in felt faced in aluminium foil. The pews, altar rails and other fittings are constructed of aluminium with hardwood seating (afrormosia or teak) and attached kneeling rails. The High Altar is of pale ashlar limestone and the reservation altar has a concrete top. Floors are covered in hardwood block and clay tile. The principal doors and windows have hardwood frames, while the large glazed sections of the porch are aluminium-framed.

The church is planned as a rotated square on plan, oriented as a diamond or lozenge. Confessionals project from the north and south corners of the worship area. The south-east quadrant contains the narthex and porch, with a repository and organ loft stairs to the north of the porch, and a side chapel to the south. The east end of the narthex has a glazed wall to the worship space, with a sunken baptistery beyond and an organ loft above. The altar sits on a stage in the north-west sanctuary with a reservation altar in the corner behind the High Altar. Altar rails are positioned at the stage edge with a door to the vestries and sacristy to the left. The north-east and south-west areas each contain ten rows of pews with adjoining confessionals.

Externally, the building features curved, multi-angled and multi-pitched roofs forming a double hyperbolic paraboloid that rises to a central glazed vertical clerestorey with a large metal cross at the apex. The roof is carried on projecting concrete piers to three sides in the manner of flying buttresses, fitted with external aluminium-lined concrete gullies and drains. Between two piers, facing Wells Road, is the glazed projecting entrance front approached by three engineering brick steps, which opens as four door openings (the outer two fixed). The frieze above reads "CATHOLIC CHURCH OF ST BERNADETTE". The porch roof sweeps forward to an overhanging peak. The red brick wall to the left has three tall openings to the side chapel, with a horizontal strip of glazing hidden in the soffits of the eaves at the head of the brick walls. The north and south corners have two splayed square-section metal braces between the roof eaves and the wall, repeated at high level to each corner of the narthex glazing. The north confessional is covered in roughcast render; the south confessional is tile hung to match the adjoining link building. Window openings to the link have slate cills.

Internally, the church is arranged as two seating areas at 45 degree angles from the altar with a sunken baptistery to the rear. Upper wall ledges conceal a continuous glazed strip, and the broad expanse of roof above is covered in vermiculite plaster and bisected by structural concrete ribs. The tapered break between the east and west sections of the roof forms a glazed clerestorey. Congregational seating consists of hardwood bench pews, aluminium-angle-framed and profiled as right-angled brackets, with green cloth cushioning. Additional seating is provided by the altar and in the narthex and porch. The pew materials and design are carried through to the mullions at each corner of the narthex glazing, the two altar rails, font, side chapel and confessional fittings. The altar, elevated on a stage, is constructed of ashlar limestone inscribed "THIS IS MY BODY WHICH IS GIVEN FOR YOU". The reservation altar behind it has a fixed tabernacle lit by a small square roof light. The confessionals are timber-clad with shrines lit by lightwells depicting Christ to the north and St Bernadette of Lourdes to the south.

The side chapel, raised on a single step, has a plain ashlar altar against the north wall. The baptistery is lozenge-shaped, reflecting the building's plan, and is sunk by three steps. Its floor is covered in blue mosaic tiles and the brick font is a square lozenge. Above it hangs a tubular aluminium cover in the form of a hyperbolic paraboloid, designed to resemble the roof and removable. The organ loft gallery above overhangs the baptistery. To the north of the baptistery in the brick wall by a narthex door is an aumbrey with timber door.

The interior porch has a brick and aluminium piscina to each side wall. The north wall displays the foundation stone inscribed "THIS STONE WAS LAID BY/ THE RIGHT REVEREND/ MONSIGNOR CANON/ THOMAS J. HUGHES V.G./ 7TH JUNE 1967", with a cross and "A.M.D.G" (Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam) inscribed to the left. A hatchway above the foundation stone opens to the repository. The narthex wall is plastered and carries an alloy crucifix sculpted by Frank Roper of Penarth (1982). The floor is covered in square clay tiles.

The link building to the south and west, containing the sacristy, is altered and not of special interest. Other connected buildings, not included in the listing, comprise a later parish hall, the presbytery and a detached garage.