A small, neat portal framed brick church of the 1960s. 

In the early 1950s local Catholics had to travel to Spalding, Wisbech or Kings Lynn to find their nearest church. From 1955 Mass was said first in the Lower Games Room at the Chequers Hotel and subsequently in the Anglican church hall in Church Street. In 1965 Fr Mulligan, from Spalding, purchased an orchard at the junction of Foxes Lowe and Fleet Roads from a Miss Doris Mawby, who was also a benefactor to the church. The church was completed and officially opened in October the following year. The architects were Archard & Partners (Catholic Building Review, 1966). The presbytery was built in 1974.

Description

A simple brick structure, typical of many small 1960s Catholic churches. Gabled, rectangular on plan, with flat-roofed sacristy on the south side, the church hall at right angles on the north side and kitchens etc in a lower gabled east projection. All the buildings are built of a yellow brick under a pantile roof. Church and hall have mostly round-headed windows. The main front has a large window forming a slot in the gabled elevation above a lightweight open porch extending from the centre to the right of the façade, i.e. an asymmetrical element in the otherwise symmetrical elevation. The interior is plastered, with boxed-in portal frame. The two easternmost bays on the north side have folding screens so that the church can be thrown open to the hall when more space is required. There is a west gallery, closed in beneath to form a lobby or narthex, surmounted by an organ. Furnishings are plain and undistinguished though entirely fitting for the building. Six stained glass windows made in 1877, originally at St Norbert’s Spalding, installed at Holbeach in 2005.

Entry amended by AHP 26.01.2021

Heritage Details