A good many churches were being built in the Romanesque style in the 1930s, but Goldie’s church is better composed and more competently detailed than most. It is large and self confident.

The foundation stone of the Assumption of Our Lady was laid on 25 October 1930, and the church opened privately on 20 September 20 1931. Its architect Joseph Goldie (1882-1953) belonged to the third generation of a dynasty of Catholic architects, his grandfather being George Goldie and his father Edward Goldie. The Goldie practice was less successful in the years following the death of Edward Goldie but, even so, it did build a number of churches in the 1920s and 30s. These included one in Cardiff, another in Camberwell, London, and the other two built for the diocese, Our Lady and St Peter in Leatherhead and St Dunstan in Woking (the latter now demolished).

Description

The church at Englefield Green takes the form of a basilica with a polygonal sanctuary and tall campanile to the south-east. The transepts house chapels with polygonal apses similar in form to that of the sanctuary. The building is rendered and painted white with brick dressings and Roman tiles on the roof. The whole thing has a bit of a swagger. Ancillary accommodation and a priest’s house have been added to the east, and a new hall built to the south. All the buildings are rendered and painted white like the church itself.

Inside, the church has a wide nave with aisle passages to either side. It is painted throughout. The only surprise is the incongruous style of the plaster mouldings and the painted lunettes in the sanctuary, a type of decoration strangely at odds with the monumental character of the architecture.

Updated 15.02.2021

Heritage Details