Church Of The Assumption Of Our Lady

Church of the Assumption of Our Lady, Torquay

A Roman Catholic church built in 1853 to the designs of J Hansom, with an aisle and Lady Chapel added in 1858. The building forms part of a complex that includes a schoolroom and presbytery on Abbey Road. It is constructed of local grey limestone rubble with freestone dressings and slate roofs, and is designed in the Decorated style.

The plan comprises a nave, chancel, north and south transepts, north and south aisles, and a north-west porch. The chancel is lower than the nave and marked by a gabled bellcote at the junction. The north elevation displays three windows to the chancel and a buttressed transept featuring a 3-light window with trefoil-headed lights. Two aisle bays project to the north with buttresses that have battered set-offs and gables. The westernmost bay has a lean-to roof, whilst a gabled porch projects from the westernmost bay, its gable coped and featuring a chamfered arched doorway with a statue niche. The west end is articulated by a central buttress flanked by one-light traceried windows, with a traceried spherical triangle above. Four gables articulate the south elevation.

The interior preserves much of Hansom's original work, though the roofs are partly boxed in with plasterboard and the chancel fittings and font are late 20th century. The carved work, which is of high quality, has been spray-painted silver and most painted decoration covered in white paint. The four-bay nave has a west-end gallery containing the organ. The north arcade features polished Italian columns with moulded capitals and double-chamfered arches, whilst the south arcade differs, employing polished marble shafts with the two easternmost columns clustered. The south aisle roof is divided into separate bays with transverse members displaying hammerbeam detail. The lean-to roof of the north aisle employs timber trusses and includes a stone arch into the transept. The west bay features a low triple arcade into the west ends of the aisles.

The moulded chancel arch springs from short marble shafts with Early English capitals, the capitals springing from carved heads. Arcades connect the chancel to both the north-east Lady Chapel and the south-east baptistry. The baptistry abuts the chancel awkwardly, with two parallel arcades and a mini-aisle in timber posts. The Lady Chapel features a 19th-century stone carved and painted brattished reredos divided into bays by slender marble shafts, and a stone altar table supported on three shafts with Early English capitals. The baptistry preserves a boarded keeled wagon roof with 19th-century painted decoration. A 20th-century pulpit incorporates a carved figure panel that may derive from the 19th-century reredos. Beaten copper Stations of the Cross are mounted on the south aisle wall.

Most of the nave benches date to the 19th century. A remarkable wall monument in a round-headed niche on the south aisle wall features a naturalistic white marble head of the Virgin above an inscription to Edward Melchior Jean Marie, Prince de Polignac, composer of music, 1834-1901.

The stained glass includes an east window by Hardman of the 1860s, displaying the characteristic fading typical of the firm's work of that period. A fine set of late 19th-century Hardman windows occupies the south aisle, including one to Henry Cary featuring a portrait figure of Cary on a bier at its base. Hardman windows depicting Marian symbols appear in the side wall of the Lady Chapel and in the east window.