A modest structure of the early 1960s, intended as the hall to a future parish church, but which has remained a chapel of ease to Marychurch, Hatfield.

After the war, Hatfield was designated a New Town, leading to considerable expansion. The parish was split in 1959, and the church of St Peter, Hatfield South (qv) opened in 1961. The church of St Thomas More, Welham Green was built in 1963 on the site of a former sewage works, as the first stage of an intended new parish complex. The building was designed to accommodate 200, and the total cost was £16,580. Sufficient land had been acquired for a future church and presbytery, and it was intended that in due course the 1963 building would become a parish hall. However, the building has remained a church, serving as a chapel of ease to Marychurch, Hatfield.

Description

Being built over a former sewage works, the substructure had to be raised above the level of the old filter beds, over a pre-cast concrete floor. The building is of laminated timber portal frame construction, externally clad in brick, and with a steeply-pitched roof, now covered with felt. Small flat-roofed projections house the narthex, original baptistery and sacristies; these are in cavity brickwork with flat roofs. Over the entrance porch, a tall central west window rises to the eaves. 

The interior has not been inspected. Early photographs show a laminated portal frame, rising like crucks, with exposed brick walls. A clerestory runs along both sides of the nave under the eaves (boarded up at the time of the visit). According to the Catholic Building Review (1966), a stone font, altar and wrought iron baptistery gate were brought from a demolished Catholic church at Addiscombe, near Croydon.  

Heritage Details