Roman Catholic Church of St Richard is a Grade II listed building in the South Downs National Park local planning authority area, England. First listed on 20 April 2005. Church.

Roman Catholic Church of St Richard

WRENN ID
high-jade-sage
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
South Downs National Park
Constituency
Arundel and South Downs MP: Andrew Griffith (Con)
Country
England
Date first listed
20 April 2005
Type
Church
Address
Roman Catholic Church of St Richard, Top Road, Slindon, Arun
OS grid reference
SU 960 084
Coordinates
50.86795, -0.63591
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Roman Catholic Church of St Richard was built in 1865, designed by C.A. Buckler and endowed by the Countess of Newburgh. It is constructed of stone rubble with ashlar dressing and a slate roof, and comprises a four-bay nave, a lower two-bay chancel, a south aisle, and a north porch. The church is executed in the Gothic style, featuring traceried windows with leaded lights and buttresses.

The west front, oriented to face the rising sun for liturgical reasons, has a cross-shaped saddlestone and a large arched west window with five trefoil-headed lancets above three circular openings. A smaller window is located south of this, also with trefoil-headed lights and a trefoil above. An arched west door is marked by recessed colonnettes. The south side features paired lancets with trefoil heads and quatrefoils above. The north side has windows with three trefoil-headed lancets and two circular lights. The gabled north porch has a trefoil-headed arch with a sexfoil stone plaque above, bearing the shield and mitre of St Richard of Chichester. The east front is defined by an arched window with three trefoil-headed lancets, and above it, a central circular window flanked by trefoils.

Inside, the nave roof has purlins and arched braces supported on stone corbels. Original fittings by Buckler remain, including a carved stone altar within the chancel with marble colonnettes, and a carved stone altar in the Lady Chapel incorporating a statue of the Virgin and Child beneath a trefoil-headed canopy. An octagonal stone font has marble shafts to its columns, and a stone pulpit features trefoil-headed cutouts. The original pews survive. The west window contains stained glass by Hardman, dated 1865, depicting the Virgin and Child centrally, with St Richard and St Anthony of Padua on either side. A particularly fine marble Neo-Classical wall monument, signed by Bertel Thorwaldsen and commemorating Anthony Earl of Newburgh (died 1814), depicts a kneeling woman and a grieving angel either side of a central column; it is one of only three monuments by Thorwaldsen in England.

Local climate

Roman Catholic Church of St Richard receives an average of 820 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 51% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 85% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 14 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 87% of listed buildings. Of these, 7 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

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