A modest chapel built in the 1920s in connection with the adjacent former convent.

The church was built as the chapel to a convent (now closed) and for the Catholic residents of Thorpe Bay, which was being developed before and after the First World War. It opened in 1928. It is now served from Shoeburyness.

Description

A simple hall building consisting of a single cell on a rectangular plan with a continuous pitched roof.  The external walls are rendered with applied half-timbering on the east and west gables. The roof is covered in plain red tiles. At the west end is a projecting porch with a pitched roof and a half-timbered gable. The north and south side elevations are each of seven bays, the bay divisions marked by plain buttresses, and in each bay is a rectangular casement window with small-paned glazing. At the eastern end of the church is a flat-roofed addition containing the sacristy.

The interior is a single undivided space with a lino-covered floor and plastered walls and with the roof covered with boarding above the main timber roof trusses. The sanctuary space in the easternmost bay is flanked by doorways to the sacristy behind. All the windows are clear glazed and the furnishings are of the simplest.

Heritage Details