A late Victorian church executed to a high standard from designs by John A. Crawley and mostly completed by F.A. Walters (the tower was completed in the 1960s as a memorial to the Catholic writer Hilaire Belloc, who is buried here). The interior impresses with its complete stone vaulting. It has more recently been further enriched by two fine altars and reredoses designed by Walters and brought from the chapel of the former diocesan seminary at Wonersh. The priest’s house is of great historical interest, having seen continuity of Catholic worship throughout penal times. 

Catholic worship continued at West Grinstead after the Reformation, kept alive by the Caryll family of West Grinstead Park. The priests’ house contains a chapel in an upper room believed to have been used throughout the period when Catholicism was outlawed. The priest’s house was endowed as a presbytery in 1671. As a shrine in honour of Our Lady, West Grinstead was established before the Reformation. This explains why the present church is of such size and quality in a rural location.

A Frenchman, Fr Jean-Marie Denis, was appointed in 1863 (he died in 1900) and the Bishop of Southwark asked him to erect ‘a miniature French cathedral’. What was built is not quite that but is nonetheless ambitious for a small rural parish and shrine. Tall nave, with aisles, and sanctuary, and southwest tower. A south transept was never built. All in flint with ashlar dressings and in the Gothic style of around 1300. Only the tower looks more ‘free’ with its three-light bell-openings and the outline of its top and the small fleche.

Inside, the entire church is stone rib-vaulted and of unexpected quality. Oversized heraldic shields, carved in stone and painted, are at the springing point of the nave arcades, bearing the arms of the benefactors of the parish and shrine. The foundation stone was laid on 29 May 1875 and the church was opened on 27 June 1876. This comprised the nave and aisles only and was designed by John Crawley (cf Sacred Heart Hove). The aisles were to be raised later.

The church was built as a Shrine ‘in honour of Our Lady and in thanksgiving for the restitution of the Catholic Faith to England’. The ceremony of crowning took place on 12 July, 1893 in the presence of Bishop Butt of Southwark.

The building was in the Early Decorated style, and the nave was stone vaulted. Of the original plan the transepts, nuns’ choir, tower and spire had not been realised. The aisles were raised and the sanctuary, chapels to either side of the sanctuary and a bell turret were added in 1896 by F.A. Walters. The church was reopened on 14 July 1896. It is not clear when the tower was begun but the upper parts were built in 1964, to designs by Messrs Riley & Glanfield. It looks rather 1914 than 1964. They also added the short spire. The completion of the tower was in memory of Hilaire Belloc, who died in 1953 and is buried here.

In 2022-3 two altars and reredoses from the chapel of the former diocesan seminary at Wonersh were gifted to the parish and installed in the side chapels, under the direction of Anthony Feltham-King of St Ann’s Gate Architects. Both were designed by F.A.Walters, architect of the side chapels. In the northeast chapel, the altar of St Charles Borromeo had been given to Wonersh by the Rev. Cuthbert Robinson DSC, and was the first side altar in the chapel to be consecrated (in March 1897). It has a mensa and gradine of coloured marbles and a Jacobean-style timber reredos incorporating a painted central figure of St Charles. In the northwest chapel, the altar of St Francis de Sales was presented to Wonersh by Francis Bourne and consecrated by him in 1898, one of his final acts as rector of the seminary before taking up his duties as Bishop of Southwark. It was made by Earp & Hobbs of Lambeth. It is of expensive coloured marbles, with a central roundel portrait of St Francis in the reredos. The reredos is topped by a scrolled pediment flanking a plinth incorporating the letters VJ, standing for Vive Jesu, the motto of the Oblates of St Francis de Sales.

The church was listed Grade II in 2007, following Taking Stock. List description at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1391890

The presbytery is listed Grade II*. Description at: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1026840

Amended by AHP 19.09.2024

Heritage Details