A small and plain brick pre-war Gothic church, designed for later enlargement.

The church opened in 1931, a need driven perhaps by the establishment in the town of a training farm of the Midland Catholic Land Association. On 21 March 1931 The Tablet reported:

‘The building of a small permanent church at Market Bosworth, Leicester, to accommodate sixty-five persons, has been entrusted to Messrs. Payne Bros., a Catholic firm, of Hinckley. The church will be erected in such a way as to permit of enlargement when the congregation grows stronger. The site was given by a non-Catholic, Sir Arthur Wheeler, the well-known stockbroker, who was recently compelled by the long-continued industrial depression to file his petition. The first sod was cut on the Feast of Pope St. Gregory, and the church will be known as Our Lady and St. Gregory’s. It is hoped that it will be ready for public worship on Ascension Thursday. For some time Father Degen has been saying Mass either at the Red Lion Hotel or in the parlour o f Mrs. Trivett’s house’.

The church was later extended. It is a chapel-of-ease served from Earl Shilton (qv).

Description

A low building, T-shaped in plan with an additional cross-bar on one side. It looks as though the original small church was enlarged by the addition of a cross-range at one end which has now become the worship space while the church has become a hall. A presbytery house is in the one of angles between them, with a projecting porch in the other. The whole building is faced in red brick laid in stretcher bond with roof coverings of natural slate to the hall and concrete tiles to the church and presbytery. The gable end of the present hall has a pointed central doorway flanked by small pointed windows with a niche in the gable of the main wall above. The side walls of the hall have large rectangular timber windows with brick soldier arches set between pilaster buttresses. The cross-range has large pointed windows in both gable ends, with smaller rectangular windows on side elevations, again with pilaster buttresses.

The interior of the cross-range is a single large undivided space with walls of painted breezeblock and exposed timber roof trusses. The altar is placed on a small dais in the centre of the long side opposite the opening to the hall. The hall space has had a ceiling inserted at tie-beam level. All the windows of the building are clear glazed. The only fitting of interest is a large and elaborate nineteenth century alabaster font, which was apparently purchased and given to the church fairly recently (ex.inf. Fr Fellows).

Amended by AHP 28.01.2021

Heritage Details