A modest concrete-framed post-war building, built as a dual-purpose church and hall, with a stone front. 

Sunday Mass was said in a doctor’s surgery in Narborough from 1939, then in a room in the Narborough Arms Hotel, served from Blessed Sacrament, Braunstone, Leicester. Through local fundraising, a site was acquired in the Leicester Road and a small new church-cum-church hall dedicated to the then newly-canonised Pope Pius X was built in 1957-8, from designs by Thomas E. Wilson of Uppingham. The builders were Bray & Oswin of Oadby and the approximate cost was £3,400.

Narborough became a separate parish in 1965 and a presbytery was built in 1967 (from designs by Reynolds & Scott). At about this time the church was refurbished and enlarged by the addition of a sacristy and a separate parish hall. The hall was enlarged and refitted in 2004.

Description

The church and hall are contiguous, under a single shallow-pitched roof covered with concrete tiles. The building consists of a concrete portal frame of nine bays, with an addition to the hall in plain buff brick. The main front is faced in rubble masonry with strap pointing and has an asymmetrical gable and to one side a projecting porch on brick piers. The side walls have continuous strips of timber windows under the eaves with timber panels below.

The interior is light and spacious. The ribs of the concrete frame are exposed. The walls and ceiling are plastered or boarded and painted a light colour. The windows are clear glazed. There is no structural sanctuary but the altar stands on a single step with a shallow recess behind. The west bay of the church building is occupied by the entrance lobby, a bookshop space and a lavatory.

Amended by AHP 29.01.2021

Heritage Details