Roman Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart

Roman Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart

This Roman Catholic church was built in 1883-4 in the Gothic style by architects Leonard Stokes and C E Ware. It is constructed of purple grey sandstone with dressings of Bath or Portland stone, under slate roofs with coped gables.

The church has a roughly cruciform plan, oriented south-west to north-east, with an apsed chancel at the east end and a tower at the north corner. It fronts onto the street with the main west gable facing the road.

The tall gabled west front features a low porch or narthex with a pair of three-light pointed windows with elaborate tracery, flanked by two entrance doors and topped with a dentil cornice. Above the narthex, lighting the west end of the nave, are two three-light windows with tracery and hoodmoulds. Between the heads of these windows is a statue niche, above which is a band of alternating coloured stone blocks and an oculus. The tower at the north corner has an entrance in its base with a two-light window above featuring a quatrefoil in plate tracery; a similar window faces north. Above the lowest stage, the tower rises sheer to the bell-stage, which has pairs of two-light traceried windows on each face and a plain parapet. The north aisle fronting Bear Street has pairs of two-light traceried windows matching those in the tower. The nave clerestory features triplets of plain lancets with a continuous hood mould, continued on the transept side walls. The gable wall of the north transept has three tall lancets with a large traceried rose window above. The sanctuary has an apsidal end with a hipped roof and nine tall single-light windows with geometric tracery.

Inside, the low-vaulted narthex leads to a tall broad nave with five-bay arcades of chamfered and moulded arches carried on octagonal columns of polished Portland and Pocombe stone with moulded capitals and bases. The nave has an open timber roof. The north aisle is wider than the south. Both the south aisle windows and those of the clerestory have inner arcades. The baptistery features wrought-iron gates and railings with a modern font. Beyond the crossing, a tall pointed sanctuary arch is flanked by narrower bays with pointed openings at lower levels containing canopied images, with pairs of canopied images above under blind pointed arches. The east walls of the transepts contain pointed arches opening to side chapels. Both the chapels and the sanctuary have elaborate floors of inlaid wooden blocks of Italian origin. The nave's vaulted roof was replaced in 1989, and the sanctuary has a seven-sided roof with arched braces.

The church is richly furnished. The high and side altars feature elaborate reredoses in marble and alabaster designed by Scoles. The north transept altar has a similar reredos set against a mural painting of West Country saints by Bernard Collier, executed in 1894. Marble sanctuary rails with enamel panels ornament the railings and gates. A wrought-iron rood screen depicting the crucifixion scene, installed in 1886, fills the tympanum of the sanctuary arch. The church contains a large quantity of stained glass, mostly attributed to Devon glassmaker Frederick Drake; glass in the north aisle was installed in 1934 to commemorate the golden jubilee of the church's opening. The organ dates from around 1893 (restored in 1988) and was built by Hele and Company. A single bell, hung in 1884, is dedicated to St Boniface.