St Pius X Roman Catholic Church And Presbytery, 4 Bayfield Terrace, Glasgow

St Pius X Roman Catholic Church and Presbytery

A stripped modern Romanesque church and adjacent priest's house designed by Alexander McAnally and built between 1954 and 1957. The church is an aisle-less structure with an apse, constructed in red brick with contrasting cream sandstone dressings and eaves course. The brickwork features chamfered arrises, and the building is characterised by round-arched windows and plain pier buttresses.

The entrance elevation to the south-east is gabled and incorporates a slender campanile engaged to the right. A tripartite doorpiece in ashlar forms the focal point, with a gable over the centre door bearing a carved panel and a stone cross breaking through at the apex. Three pairs of boarded doors with decorative hinges occupy the openings beneath. A tall round-arched window rises above.

The campanile stands at the east corner of the south-east elevation. It is rectangular in plan with louvred round-arched windows at the towerhead—a single opening to the south-east and north-west, and a tall bipartite window to the north-east. A swept, tall copper pavilion roof crowned with a metal cross finial tops the structure.

The north-east elevation displays the campanile to the outer left, followed by a seven-bay nave separated by dividing buttresses. A single-storey flat-roofed vestry porch projects to the right.

The north-west elevation features a tall, deeply bowed apse with ashlar mullioned window strips at wallhead to the left and right. A flat-roofed single-storey service ambulatory projects at ground level.

The south-west elevation comprises a single bay of narthex to the outer right, followed by a seven-bay nave. A bowed conically roofed baptistery adjoins the outer right bay and contains an eight-light window. A flat-roofed single-storey porch spans three bays to the left of centre.

Throughout the building, windows are fitted with square-pane metal glazing grids featuring hopper openings and small-lead-pane glazing patterns. Grey slates cover the pitch, swept low over the nave and bowed at the apse and baptistery.

The interior retains fine period modern church fittings. Panelled wainscot rises to the altar in bays, with the crossing delineated by pilasters. Plastered walls support a plastered roof enclosed below the apex and ribbed with supporting beams on block corbels at intervals.

A tall round arch opens to the apse, flanked by altars to Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, each with a marble altar and a stylised timber reredos behind the statue. Round-arched panel recesses extend behind, protected by decorative two-leaf railed brass gates. The sanctuary stands on a panelled base of various marbles, sheltered by a tall, gabled, canopied timber baldacchino that encloses a crucifix with a figure of Jesus Christ beneath a coffered barrel vault with studded fleuron and carved capitals. Panelled wainscot steps down the flanking walls of the apse, adorned with a carved foliaceous frieze and panels divided by quasi-reeded bases. The principal altar is panelled with various marbles and framed with contrasting paired pilasters. A marble altar rail rests on marble dies of paired pilasters. The lectern comprises various marbles with paired contrasting columns to the base. The font consists of an octagonal marble shaft with a contrasting basin. The baptistery is screened by decorative wrought-metal gates and railings. Timber pews occupy the nave. Stations of the Cross are represented by Stanley Spencer-influenced contemporary paintings. A tripartite entrance screen to the narthex comprises three sets of two-leaf doors with cross-pattern glazing in the upper sections.

The contemporary presbytery is an en suite two-storey, near-rectangular-plan priest's house. Its south-east elevation features a central ashlar porch set within a shallow re-entrant formed by an advanced bay to the left, gabled with a cross finial. The south-west elevation displays a broad canted window at the centre ground, with varying windows flanking and above. The building joins the church at its east corner via a single-storey flat-roofed link. The rear elevation shows regular fenestration at first floor. A single-storey piend-roofed porch projects from the north-west side elevation. Metal casement windows and grey slates throughout, with brick stacks and corbels to the overhanging eaves.

Boundary walls of brick line the north-east and north-west perimeters, curving at the corner with ashlar coping and an ashlar-coped brick parapet featuring grouped openings at intervals. A gabled corner panel breaks upward with a stone cross relief. Plain railings enclose the remaining perimeter. A pair of taller decorative scrolled wrought-iron gates provides access to the presbytery drive, whilst plainer two-leaf gates with flanking pedestrian gates serve the church.