A fine example of a Georgian church with a complete galleried interior, largely unaltered and possibly the earliest example of a purpose-built post-Reformation Catholic church not associated with a private estate or foreign embassy.

The church was built immediately following the Second Catholic Relief Act of 1791 and paid for by Elizabeth Heneage (neé Brown), who was born on the Isle of Wight and married into the old Catholic Heneage family from Lincolnshire. It is reputed to be the first public Catholic church built since the Reformation outside the context of a private estate or foreign embassy. The architect has not been established, but may have been the Revd Thomas Gabb, a Londoner who trained as a priest at Douai. A contemporary biography corroborates the fact that he was skilled in architecture, and he is credited with the design of the other Elizabeth Heneage church of St Thomas of Canterbury, at Cowes.

The presbytery faces the church across a garden and pre-dates it. North of the church and presbytery a former school of 1859 and church hall complete the close-knit grouping.

Description

Bryan Little, in Catholic Churches since 1623 describes the church as ‘having little to mark it off from the almost contemporary Methodist Chapel down the street’. Externally it is of typical Georgian design, a single rectangle, three by five bays and two storeys with a pedimented gable to the street and a handsome Tuscan columned porch. The window openings are round arched, sometimes blind, to complete the symmetry, and have timber sash windows. Apart from the stone porch and pediment the entrance front is given greater emphasis by the use of a continuous first floor string-course, keystone and impost blocks to the central window and a blind circular window with key blocks in the pediment.

The interior is charming and elegant with galleries supported on fluted Composite columns and a dentil cornice, and curved forward on the short side. The gallery has box pews and a front with turned balusters (the gallery fronts are modern). Deep coving to the flat plaster ceiling. Below, at the liturgical east end, the last bay is enclosed by partitions with round-arched windows of domestic character. These enclose the sacristy to the east and the benefactress’s private chapel to the west. A shallow recess or apse beneath a round arch terminates the sanctuary. This has an open altar table designed in late-eighteenth century style with the tabernacle set on a pedestal behind and the whole oversailed by a canopy. The pews, arranged in collegiate fashion, are nineteenth century pine with open backs. The altar rails have been removed and placed on the wall at the back of the church. To the right of the side entrance is a marble wall tablet to Elizabeth Heneage, who died in 1800. Elegant eighteenth century marble font with an oval basin on a pedestal, the basin with fluting to the underside; contemporary cover. Coloured or stained glass over the liturgical west entrance below the gallery and in the foundress’s chapel and sacristy screens and elsewhere, including Victorian pictorial scenes and plain coloured glass, some of almost Art Deco character. There is a rudimentary Victorian Gothic organ case on the gallery.

Entry amended by AHP 24.10.2024

List description

The church is listed grade II*. The list entry was expanded and amended in October 2024, better to reflect the building’s special architectural and historical interest. The list entry can be found at https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1232851?section=official-list-entry

Heritage Details