Church Of St Mary

BRISTOL

ST5376NW HIGH STREET, Shirehampton 901-1/18/1734 (South side) Church of St Mary

II

Church. 1929. By P Hartland Thomas. Reinforced concrete clad with Pennant rubble with limestone dressings and a pantile roof. Aisled nave and chancel with side chapels, and W porch. Modernist Gothic Revival style. The E end has a single-storey parapeted vestry with roll top coping beneath a gable with angle buttresses and 5-light 2-centred arched window, divided by a transom. 3-bay N chancel divided by buttresses with a 3-light mullion window with flat head to the E end, and a drip course below the parapet. The E end of the taller nave has a tall stepped gable bellcote with weathered coping, containing 2 flat-headed openings with bells and a central louvred panel, with a cross above. The gable carries down to form a weathered buttress to the end of the low parapeted, windowless aisle with a left-hand 2-centred arched doorway; the nave has flat-headed 5-light mullion and transom windows extending between the buttresses. Similar S elevation. The W end has low 3-light mullion windows to the aisles and sides of the gable, a deep porch with semicircular-arched doorway with deep splayed reveals divided by 3 inscribed arches, and a 2-leaf door; above is a 5-light 2-centred arched mullion and transom window. INTERIOR: plain, unmoulded divisions, with a 2-centre chancel arch, square piers to flat-headed aisle arches, with aisles divided by semicircular cross arches. Stripped Gothic fenestration incorporated into a Modernist shell: '..no other English architect has taken church design so far along a non-traditional path' (Gomme). (Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 419; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: North Somerset and Bristol: London: 1958-: 472).

Listing NGR: ST5311176904