A brick Gothic church of the 1870s which was substantially rebuilt in the late 1940s after war damage.

The first Catholic church in Canning town opened in 1859, followed a second in 1865. Initially served from Stratford, a separate mission was founded in 1870 and the present church built in 1875-6 from designs by F. W. Tasker. The cost was £3,300 (excluding the tower); donors included Miss Helen Tasker (cousin of the architect), Cardinal Manning and the Duke of Norfolk.

The utilitarian presbytery attached to the south side of the church was added in 1884, to Tasker’s design. The east end of the church was damaged by bombing in 1940 and 1941 and the church school attached to the north side was destroyed. The church was restored in 1949-51 by T.G.B. Scott.

Description

The church is faced with yellow stock brick. The plan comprises a nave with northwest tower, tall north and south aisles and an apsidal east end. The front to the street has a tall west gable with large rose window with a five-pointed star in the tracery. The tower is square on plan with a pyramidal roof. The lower stage is windowless, while the rebuilt tall upper stage has a single slit window on each face. Behind the west gable the pitched roof extends for only one bay. Eastwards is a roof of lower pitch behind a parapet – presumably a post-war alteration. There are three lancet windows high in the aisle walls and two more in the eastern apse.

Internally the nave is of three tall bays of pointed bare brick arches on painted stone shafted piers. The lower parts of the walls are plastered and painted with arcading. A western gallery was inserted in 1899 and extends into the passage aisles in the western bay of the nave. The apse has a vaulted roof with a central rib.The marble facing of the walls below the windows is a post-war addition. The windows are clear glazed throughout.

Heritage Details