Presbytery, St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, 84 Station Road

Presbytery, St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, 84 Station Road

St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church was designed by Pugin and Pugin and built in 1904–5. It is a large, 8-bay basilican-plan Gothic parish church with a canted chancel, lean-to side aisles, and a bow-ended baptistery and stair tower at the south end of the west side aisle. A roughly square-plan presbytery is attached to the west of the church by a link corridor.

Church

The church is built in squared, coursed, bull-faced cream sandstone with polished ashlar dressings. It features a base course, an ashlar cill band to the clerestory windows, and an eaves course. All windows are topped with bull-faced relieving arches. The fenestration consists predominantly of cusped 2- and 3-light windows in depressed-arch margins with traceried tops and projecting sloping cills at ground level. The clerestory has 2- and 3-light cusped windows in rectangular margins, with bays divided by pilaster buttresses.

The principal elevation faces south and has a central 2-leaf timber-boarded door with a depressed-arch architrave in a slightly projecting porch. The porch entrance has a roll-moulded, pointed arch and chamfered corners, with late 20th-century steps leading to the door. Bipartite windows flank the entrance on each side, with a large hoodmoulded, traceried window above and a small window to the gable apex. Secondary entrances with matching detailing are positioned to the left and right of the main elevation. The east elevation has regular fenestration, while the west aisle has a baptistery, link corridor, and sacristy outshot. The north chancel has three tall bipartite traceried windows.

Many windows contain leaded lights with stained glass. The roof features grey slate with decorative grey ridge tiles, and cast-iron rainwater goods with round hoppers and decorative brackets. Stone cross-finials top the south gable, while a metal cross-finial crowns the north end. Ashlar-coped skews with gableted ends complete the external detail.

The interior contains a 6-bay nave with pointed-arch arcades to the aisles resting on octagonal sandstone columns. The roof is arch-braced with kingpost construction, supported on bracket corbels. The apsidial chancel features stained glass windows from 1948 by John Hardman Co.

The High Altar is of very decorative Carrara marble with Gothic detailing and Byzantine-style mosaic panels. A decorative canopy covers the central tabernacle, with statues of Saints Andrew and Patrick positioned above. The chancel also contains a marble lectern, credence table, sedile (priest's chair), font, and altar steps, all in marble. Side altars dedicated to the Sacred Heart and Our Lady have marble construction with mosaic panels and small brass gates to the altar rails.

A narthex with a glazed screen and half-glazed doors provides entry, with an organ gallery positioned above.

Presbytery

The presbytery dates from circa 1902 and is a roughly square-plan gabled house built in snecked sandstone. It has a piend-roofed service outshot to the rear, a base course, and an eaves cornice.

The windows are predominantly bipartite and tripartite with transom and mullion divisions. The south (front) elevation features depressed-arched lights. A 2-leaf timber-panelled front door is set within a stop-chamfered, depressed-arch, hoodmoulded architrave, with a slightly advanced bay to the left containing tripartite windows and bipartite windows to the right. The west and north elevations have fenestration roughly arranged in bays. A flat-roofed side lobby with a timber-panelled door, transomed window, and parapet outshot extends from the east elevation below the staircase window.

Internally, the presbytery retains some original fireplaces and features decorative cornicing and timber-panelled interior doors throughout. A timber staircase with turned balustrade and decorative newel posts provides access to upper floors. Double-glazed timber sash and case windows are installed throughout. Rendered gablehead and wallhead stacks with red clay cans rise through the roof.

The presbytery is connected to the church by a glazed link corridor extending from behind the side lobby. Ashlar-coped skews complete the external detail.