F. X. Velarde is a significant twentieth-century church architect and St Aloysius is an assured design in his stripped-down modern Romanesque style. Many of the original furnishings survive.

The parish was erected in 1934 to serve a new housing estate, and a temporary church built at a cost of £2,200. A presbytery (1935, extended in 1952)  and schools followed.  Plans for the laying of the foundation stone for a larger, more permanent church on 10 September 1939 were shelved on account of the outbreak of war, and the foundation stone for the present building was laid exactly ten years later, on 10 September 1949. The church was opened on 23 April 1952. The final cost was £70,000.

The church was reordered in 1992 by the Vis Williams Partnership.

Description

A large red brick church in modern Romanesque style, with concrete windows surrounds and blue pantile roof coverings. The plan comprises a central west tower with flanking vestibules, aisleless nave and short sanctuary. The austere west tower has a central round-arched stone doorway, with a tall small-paned round-headed concrete window over and a statue of St Aloysius above the window; above again are three rectangular belfry openings on each face and no parapet. Set back on either side of the tower are two-storey vestibule and stair lobbies with lean-to tiled roofs. Their west faces are blind apart from one small round window at ground floor level; the return elevation has a single round-headed concrete window. Flanking the lobbies are the single-storey ends of the low aisles. The body of the nave rises higher than the vestibules, with six long concrete windows on each side set flat with the walls and a plain parapet concealing the roof-verge.

The interior is a wide space spanned by concrete parabolic arches supporting a pitched rafter-roof whose rafters are visible. Below the six windows on either side are low semi-circular arches to the passage aisles and confessionals. At the west end the tower space opens into the church by a tall round arch with a balcony, evidently intended as an organ loft. At the east end, the short sanctuary is lit by three windows on each side and has a tall open arched recess in the east wall.

In 1992 a nave altar was introduced in front of the communion rails and the floor was carpeted. However, most of the original furnishings remain. They include the stone high altar with its curving canopy set into the eastern arched recess, the astylar marble communion rail, the stone drum font and the original benches.

Entry amended by AHP 11.01.2021

Heritage Details