An early twentieth-century church designed originally in a Free Perpendicular Gothic which now has a mixed character as a result of its complicated building history, with several significant alterations and additions.

The site of the church and presbytery was given by an anonymous donor, who also paid for the first stage of the church. As designed, the nave was to be of seven bays but at first only three were built, together with the presbytery.  The identity of the architect has not been established; on stylistic grounds, Arthur Young is considered to be a possibility. A further three bays were added in 1930. The builders were Gibbon & Co. of Hendon.

In 1957-58 the sanctuary was enlarged and a new south aisle and chapel added to the designs of Burles & Newton.  At the same time the brick piers of the nave arcades were replaced with steel and concrete columns to improve visibility.  A new hall was built in 1964, also by Burles & Newton.

Description

The church is designed in a free Perpendicular Gothic style.  The external walls are faced with red brick with stone dressings and roof coverings of slate. The building is not orientated; the liturgical east end lies to the northwest. The plan comprises a low narthex or forebuilding, nave with aisles of unequal width, sanctuary and southeast chapel. On the main (liturgical) west front to the road, the narthex has a central canted bay with three small windows flanked by porches with wide doorways.  The whole narthex is crenellated.  The nave gable wall has a large five-light window under a four-centred head with Perpendicular tracery. The aisle west walls are low with plain coped parapets hiding flat roofs. The nave side elevations are of six bays, with flat-roofed aisles running the full length. In the clerestory the end bays are blind while the four central bays have three-light windows with Perpendicular tracery.  The south clerestory windows have heads of two different shapes, presumably belonging to the two phases of construction. The lower sanctuary is of two bays, one with three lancet windows a side, the other with two. The flat east end wall is blind.

Internally the nave walls are plastered and painted and the floor is parquet.  There is a timber west gallery supported on stone piers.  The north and south arcades are of five bays with wide flat pointed arches dying into piers, whose lower parts were replaced in 1958 with concrete columns with plain cushion capitals. The piers are carried up to the wall plate of an elaborate timber hammerbeam roof which covers the nave and between the piers are the rere-arches of the clerestory windows.  The wide south aisle has a flat ceiling and a long strip window with stone mullions at the head of the south side wall. The north aisle also has a flat ceiling and only one rectangular window towards the east end. All the windows of the nave are glazed with clear quarries. A wide, moulded four-centred arch opens into the sanctuary which is two bays deep with a panelled ceiling. Furnishings include two modern stained glass windows by Carmel Cauchi, Christ bearing the cross and St Anthony, and a more recent window in the Blessed Sacrament chapel by Sophie D’Souza.

Heritage Details