Roman Catholic Church of St Benedict, attached school room, boundary walls and lychgate, Downside Abbey

The Roman Catholic Church of St Benedict and its attached school room (now parish hall) were built in 1857 to designs by Charles Francis Hansom (1817–1888). The church and school room are constructed of coursed rubble stone with ashlar window surrounds under slate roofs.

The building comprises two parallel ranges aligned east-west, connected by a collection of smaller rooms forming a rough H-plan. The northern range is the Church of St Benedict and the southern range the school room, now the parish hall. A lower range running north-south connects these two ranges and was originally the teacher's house. The second storey of the parish hall and central range comprises two flats, known as the Parish Flat and Convent Flat.

Exterior

The building is in a Perpendicular style but has three distinct ranges. The parallel east-west ranges of the parish hall and church both have pitched roofs with cross finials at either end and gablet and pointed trefoil-cusped kneelers.

The northern range is slightly longer than the southern range and is the Church of St Benedict. It is of six bays with chancel and nave. To the north are four projections housing the lady chapel, the tower, the porch and an octagonal stair turret. The eastern end is supported by diagonal buttresses. The lady chapel has a decorative crossed keys motif on its northern elevation. The tower is of two lifts with pyramidal lead roof topped with a cross weathervane. The porch has an off-centre four-centred arched doorway. The windows are mostly tall rounded arched windows with cusped tracery in groups of two or three. Exceptions are the east window, which is a pointed-arched, three-light stained-glass window with geometric tracery and arched hood mould that culminates in head stops; the tower windows, which are central pointed-arch two-light windows with curvilinear tracery; and the octagonal stair turret windows which are arrow slits.

The school range (now parish hall) is a three-bay range running east-west. It has mostly pointed arch windows with two-light geometric tracery, although the three along the southern elevation have been altered to square openings externally and have modern uPVC windows inserted. Between the first and second bay are the remains of a chimney stack and 20th-century half dormers have been inserted at eaves level. The east end has two lancet windows with modern uPVC inserts.

The central connecting range, originally the teacher's house, is made up of a collection of smaller pitched roofed infills. The front range runs north-south and includes an entranceway, sacristy and kitchen. It has an eight-light cross mullion window set in a recessed ashlar frame. A small pitched roofed porch projects forward of this range with cross finial and triangular kneelers that has been truncated to fit the space. It has a central pointed arch doorway with trefoil headed statue recess above. A small 20th-century range running east-west finishes the central block and houses the rear entrance lobby, with central four-centred arch opening set in a rectangular recess with carved stone detail above. The roof of this range sits on small stone corbels and the roof is broken by a modern dormer window.

Interior

The main range of the Church of St Benedict is laid out with chancel and nave and organ loft. The chancel at the east end has a raised timber dais with plain oak communion rails and a central reredos. The chancel arch, where the rood screen was removed, has been stopped off by the insertion of corbels in the design of musical cherubs, carved by the sculptor Gilbert Sumsion. The east end is decorated with a three-light east window and flanked on the south side by a piscina with trefoil cusping and on the north side a reliquary (St Vigor), also with trefoil cusping but fronted by a decorated iron grate.

The nave is laid with red and black tiles under a wagon roof with stopped corbels. Arched openings along the north wall access the Lady Chapel, baptistry (above which is the tower) and north porch. The Lady Chapel is in what was originally the north porch. It is oak panelled, and the window contains small fragments of medieval glass. The Baptistry is a small square space with vertical wooden panelling and font. The marks of the old stairs leading to the choir loft from inside the nave can be seen in the plaster on the right-hand wall facing the altar, opposite the belfry. The organ loft at the west end of the nave incorporates fabric from the 1915 rood screen. A spiral staircase provides access from the later northern porch. The porch is rectangular in shape with panelling and a small stone holy water stoup carved by Wilfrid Collins Senior in 1914.

Doors at either end of the south wall lead into the central range which consists of east porch, sacristy, kitchen access to the upper floor flat and the rear 20th-century entrance lobby with confessions rooms. The main external door into the east porch is a pointed arch vertical boarded door with 19th-century strap hinges and lock mechanism. The porch is separated from the sacristy, which was originally the teacher's living room, by a 19th-century timber and glass screen with central doorway. This space has been truncated by the insertion of vertical timber boarding into an existing four-centred arch. The sacristy contains a simple stone corner fireplace with segmental arched opening and ovolo mouldings. The ceiling is of exposed joists and main beams resting on plain corbels and spans both the hallway and sacristy. Beyond, the kitchen and rear entrance lobby have no historic features of merit.

The southern range, originally the school room, remains one large space but a ceiling has been inserted to create an upper floor, and no historic fittings survive. Doors along its northern wall access the sacristy and kitchen. A door to the west enters a small lobby with WCs and external doorway. The inserted ceiling cuts across the internal reveals of the gable end windows. The northern windows show arched reveals internally, in contrast to the rectangular openings externally.

The first floor of this range, created in the 20th century, has been much altered to accommodate two independent flats. External access has been created by altering a window to a door at first-floor level in the central courtyard with a modern metal staircase for access.

Principal Fittings

The reredos is situated under the east window and made of sixteen statues in two rows of eight. These are set on pedestals and canopies and pinnacles rise above each statue to create the top of the screen. In the centre stands a figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary, added in 1968 in place of the original crucifix. The statues depict: top row—St Uritha, St Decuman, St Sativola, St Dunstan, St Alphege, St Keyna, St Joseph of Arimathea, Blessed Margaret Pole; bottom row—St Birgitta, St Congar, St Etheldreda, St Hugh of Lincoln, St Aldhelm, St Edith, St Ulricus, St Lucy. The statues flanking the reredos are St Vigor, Bishop of Bayeux and the Blessed Richard Whiting, the last abbot of Glastonbury. The reredos is flanked by statues in each corner of the chancel, under small canopies.

The east window contains stained glass depicting the death of St Benedict, made of mainly Victorian glass by John Hardman and Company of Birmingham. The south wall of the nave is adorned with a pieta, a marble sculpture of Jesus and Mary at Mount Golgotha representing the "Sixth Sorrow" of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in a decorative framed recess.

The font is an octagonal bowl set on a band of shafts. Each side has a relief carved motif and one side has the IHS motif. The pews are open backed fixed pine benches with simple plain ends with moulded top rails. Parts of the 1915 rood screen have been re-used in the balcony of the extended organ loft. The belfry houses five bells cast by Llewellins and James of Bristol. All are dated 1891.

Subsidiary Features

The complex is bounded to the east by a coursed rubble stone boundary wall with triangular coping stones. To the west it is bounded by a cock-and-hen topped rubble stone wall which would have enclosed the school playground and now surrounds a car park (2023).

The eastern access to the graveyard is covered by a lychgate of timber construction with arched braces on a low rubble-stone wall. The roof is a tiled hipped roof with gablet and trefoil decoration.