Catholic Church of the Blessed Sacrament

Catholic Church of the Blessed Sacrament

This is a Roman Catholic church of distinctive 14-sided plan, each side gabled, with rough-rendered brickwork on a black brick basement. The building sits raised above a basement church hall, with the entrance accessed from the north side up steps from the pavement.

The roof is constructed as a ridge and furrow 14-sided metal-clad structure, topped by a 14-sided glazed lantern with a matching miniature roof, crowned with a welded steel openwork cross with red painted centre disc. The roof gable verges slope outward from gully-ends over rainwater heads to overhang the wall sections. All walls except the entrance section are pierced by Greek-cross shaped small windows arranged in a regular pattern: one at each apex, then alternating rows of two and three windows.

The north porch projects from the building with a matching gabled roof, rendered side walls, and full glazing with hardwood mullions and transoms. On the rear south side, two projecting walls corresponding to internal chapels feature similar roof detailing to the porch.

The interior comprises a single impressive space dominated by a serrated roof boarded with steel ribs and supported on 14 steel posts. These ribs run up to a 14-sided steel ring at the base of the lantern, whose roof is also ribbed and boarded. Most of the posts are linked by a white-painted broad beam, with the gabled spaces between infilled mostly with white plaster panels or glazing. Two bays each side of the porch lack this beam and remain open to the cross-pierced outer walls.

The sanctuary is quadrant-shaped with a timber-panelled back screening a passage behind which are two small vestries. The pews curve in four blocks following the sanctuary step and are open-backed. Three bays behind the sanctuary screen the organ, with a statue of Christ on the centre panel.

The coloured glass in the small cross lights follows an overall colour scheme progressing from yellow to red from left to right, featuring animal and natural themes. Moving around the church from the sanctuary: the left chapel has yellow glass overall; the next bay green-blue; the third is infilled; the next two bays, open to the walls, have pink and blue, and pink and purple. The entrance bay is glazed below the beam with plaster infill above. The two open bays to the left of the porch have green glass overall, then blue, followed by a bay with confessionals, then stairs to the basement with glass in red, yellow and black, and finally the right chapel with deep red glass. Statues of Christ and Our Lady are by John Petts.

The porch contains an extraordinary egg-shaped stone font with matt finish and finely lettered incised inscription and cross. The top is flattened with two shallow bowls hollowed out and polished. The font stands on a rock-faced granite block.