An interwar church in a simple version of the architect T.H.B. Scott’s preferred round-arched style.

New Barnet was in Hertfordshire until 1965, when it became part of the new London Borough of Barnet which comprised territory from both Hertfordshire and Middlesex. The settlement grew up round the station on the Great Northern Railway which opened in 1850.  The Catholic parish of New Barnet was established in 1912. The present church was built in 1938 to the designs of T. H. B. Scott. The presbytery is also doubtless by Scott.

Description

The church is a very simple example of Scott’s favoured round-arched style.  The external walls are faced with multi-coloured stock brick laid in Flemish bond, and the roof is covered with pantiles. The plan comprises an aisleless nave and short sanctuary under a continuous pitched roof.  The church is not orientated; the liturgical east end lies to the north.  At the (liturgical) west end the gabled wall of the nave has a central doorway with a straight brick-arched head flanked by narrow slit windows and with a large round window above.  The west ends of the aisles have stone relief carvings of Mary Immaculate (to the north) and St Peter (to the south) and the roofs ends are hipped. The south elevation is divided into bays by brick pilaster strips with a single round-arched window in each bay; the north elevation is obscured by other buildings. The short sanctuary has a pair of windows on either side and a blind east wall.

Inside, the church has a western gallery over a vestibule and the uncluttered wide main space has plain plastered walls with clear-glazed metal windows in simple round-arched openings and a shallow-arched boarded ceiling. At the east end shallow steps rise to the small sanctuary.

Heritage Details