Nazareth House, including Roman Catholic Church

Nazareth House is a substantial nursing home in the early Gothic style, built of coursed rock-faced sandstone with Bath stone dressings, slate roofs behind coped gables, and ashlar chimney stacks featuring tall round shafts arranged in rows or clusters. The complex includes an attached Roman Catholic church.

The main range is two storeys with attic and presents a near-symmetrical entrance front facing south towards a forecourt. This elevation has gabled bays projecting at the centre and both ends. The central bay has a tower attached on its right (east) side, providing an asymmetrical accent, while further four-stage towers are set back at each end. The original building by Prichard extended only from the central bay to the eastern gabled bay and the recessed eastern tower. Corbett extended it westward in 1887 to create the present near-symmetrical form. At the west end, a west wing set at a splayed angle was added in 1908, with its doorway facing the entrance forecourt but its rear elevation addressing North Road. On the east side of the main range stands the church of 1897–8, raised above a basement that provides domestic accommodation and oriented to face Colum Road to the east. The church is built on a near north-south axis.

The windows throughout are replacements installed in the original openings. The lower storey features two-light mullioned and transomed windows with blind cusped-headed lights. In the upper storey and attic, two-light windows have arched heads and colonettes with waterleaf capitals. The gabled bays contain two windows on each floor with single three-light attic windows and two vents in the gable. The elevations between these bays are three windows wide, with single-light windows on the outer sides and two gabled two-light attic windows above a corbel table below the sill.

The three-stage tower on the right side of the central gable incorporates a porch in the lower stage and has a diagonal buttress on its right side. The porch has a two-centred arch with a boarded door fitted with strap hinges. A hood mould features head stops and a head at the apex with a crocket finial, and blank shields occupy the spandrels. Above, the second stage has a two-light mullioned and transomed oriel window with trefoil-headed lights and a stone slab roof. The third stage contains two cusped lights beneath a hood mould that is continuous with an impost band. Below the sills are cusped niches, between which is a blind cinquefoil-headed arch beneath a gabled canopy. A sill band to the niches continues as the attic sill band to the left. The embattled parapet projects on corbels, behind which rises a saddleback roof.

The central gable has single windows in its left side wall and a two-light attic dormer. The gabled bay at the right end has single arched windows in its side wall with a two-light attic window under a dormer roof. In its right side wall is a single window in each storey, and set well back is a four-stage tower. This tower has single paired lights in the lower three stages beneath a lean-to stone slab roof with sinuous moulding to the cornice. The upper stage has a two-light window similar to but smaller than the attic windows of the entrance front, and a hipped roof on a corbel table with a stack on the left side.

In the left side wall of the left-hand end bay is a two-light window in the lower storey, a single-light window above, and a two-light dormer. Set well back against the gabled end bay is a four-stage tower. It has a two-light window in the lower stage with angle buttresses. The second stage contains two windows with hood moulds and sill and impost bands. The third stage has two narrow lights with a sill band, and the upper stage a two-light window with a colonette and waterleaf capital. A hipped roof sits on a corbel table, with a stack on its right side.

Further left is a single-window link to the two-storey with attic and three-storey west wing built at a splayed angle. The asymmetrical front has window details similar to the main range, except that in the lower storey the windows are boarded up above the transoms and the middle-storey windows have blind arched heads with trefoils. It has two-light windows and a three-light attic window to the right-hand side. To the centre is a bay set forward with a moulded lintel, blank panel and relieving arch above a doorway with replacement double doors. Above this is a single upper-storey and smaller plain attic window and a parapet. Further left is a three-storey bay set forward with two two-light windows, which are smaller and beneath a gable in the upper storey. The south side wall facing the garden has windows grouped to the centre comprising two two-light windows, the smaller upper-storey windows beneath a gable. The rear, facing North Road, is symmetrical and composed of three double bays, the outer ones having gablets over the upper storey, the inner bays slightly projecting with gablets over both upper-storey windows.

At the east end of the main range is a short single-window link from the east tower to the church. The Early English style church is raised above a domestic basement storey and comprises a nave with a lower and narrower chancel and a side chapel on the west side of the chancel (south in liturgical terms). It has angled gabled buttresses and a slate roof. The side chapel has a single window and tall stack in its side wall and a three-light liturgical east window, below which is a three-light mullioned and transomed basement window. The chancel projects in front of the side chapel and its liturgical east window comprises three stepped lancets with linked hoods and blind panelled aprons, below which is a three-light window flanked by two-light mullioned and transomed basement windows.

Facing Colum Road, the chancel has a gabled projection with an ashlar stack. It has three stepped transomed lights with blind cusped heads beneath an arched hood mould framing a blind tympanum. The domestic basement storey has a three-light mullioned and transomed window, and both storeys have small windows to the right in dressed surrounds. Set back on the right side of the projection is a short tower and spire occupying the end bay of the nave. The tower is built above a single-window basement projection and is two stages, octagonal in plan. The lower stage has narrow lights in each facet. The upper stage has detached shafts to the angles, with segmental pointed belfry windows, ashlar battlements and a slate parapet spire.

The remaining seven buttressed bays of the nave have lancet windows with hood moulds continuous with an impost band and sill band, and two tall eaves stacks. An ashlar cornice incorporates a corbel table. The basement has segmental arched windows and a doorway in the bay set back from the right end, with a boarded door and strap hinges. The liturgical west end has two two-light windows with blind aprons. A central buttress of ashlar masonry rises between the windows, while in the spandrels the buttress turns to a broad shaft supporting an empty canopied niche on a corbel enriched with foliage, above which is a trefoil with shafts and outer attached pinnacles. The angle buttresses have broad octagonal pinnacles with pyramidal caps. The basement has a segmental-headed doorway and two windows on the right side, and a single window on the left side. The opposite side wall of the nave, facing the yard at the rear of the main block, is seven bays with lancets and a tall stack to the centre. The basement has arched windows with cusped-headed lights, except the two bays at the left end which are replacements beneath original segmental arches.

The rear faces a service yard on the north side and has plainer detailing. Beginning at the east end, behind the tower at the east end of the main range is another parallel two-storey rear wing with two-light windows flanked by single windows. Set back on the east side of this is the link to the church, which has two two-light mullioned and transomed windows. Further west is a lower gabled link at the back of the main range to a detached rear wing with gablets and a hipped-roof projection, then a single-storey wing under a hipped roof with plain dressed surrounds to the openings. A double-gabled three-bay rear wing has a single-storey four-window north projection, to the west of which, behind the tower at the west end of the entrance range, is a two-and-a-half-storey projection. A single-bay projection lies to the rear of the west wing, to the left of which is an entrance with a replacement door under a tablet engraved "Nazareth House".

The church has a nine-bay nave with collar beams on corbelled brackets. The chancel arch has half-round responds with foliage capitals and a two-centred arch. The chancel has a three-bay arched brace roof on moulded corbels, and the side chapel has a similar arched brace roof and a two-bay arcade to the chancel with a wooden panelled screen.

The nave has a gallery at the west end and relief panels of the Stations of the Cross in crocketed arched frames. The chancel has a marble reredos with blind cusped panels and figures of Archangels Gabriel and Michael. The east window contains glass showing the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, while the side chapel window has stained glass showing the Sacred Heart, Augustine and Joseph.

The corridor leading to the church has two cusped stoups and a plain open-well stair with iron balusters.