A suburban brick church of 1960 in a sober, round-arched style, with a long, uninterrupted nave and sanctuary and a clear, light interior. Furnishings include sculpture by Michael Clark.

A church-cum-hall with a gabled tower was opened in 1937, built from designs by T.H.B. Scott. Its tower incorporates a low-relief stone panel of a young St Bernadette by Philip Lindsey Clark. The present church was designed by T.G.B. Scott, son of T.H.B. Scott, and the foundation stone laid on 7 October 1960. After it opened, the former church/hall was incorporated into the nearby school as a hall. The presbytery was built in 1961, from T.G.B. Scott’s designs. The sanctuary was reordered by Jim Keegan in 2010.

Description

The church is faced with red-brown brick with a tiled roof and is designed in a plain, stripped down round-arched style without any nod to the modern architecture increasingly being adopted for Catholic churches about 1960. The church is aisleless, apart from a Lady Chapel at the northeast. The entrance front has a plain, sheer wall and a low, northwest tower under a shallow, copper-covered pyramid roof. In the tympanum over the main entrance is a mosaic depicting a kneeling figure of St Bernadette and above this is a stone statue of the saint by Michael Clark. Along the side walls are eight pairs of tall, round-arched windows.

Inside, beyond the narthex area the church stretches out as a long, plain vessel with bare brick walls and covered by a segmental-shaped ceiling. This simplicity is only broken by three arches to the Lady Chapel on the north side.

Fixtures and fittings: sculpture in the church (Stations, Crucifixion as well as the external statue of St Bernadette) is by Michael Clark. Roundel windows on either side of the sanctuary contain glass by Jane Gray (south window signed) representing the grotto at Lourdes.

Amended by AHP 18.09.2025

Heritage Details