A post-war church of mainstream design, serving a modern housing estate. Its brick campanile is a local landmark. The chief interest of the church lies in its six dalle de verre windows, made by or in consultation with Dom Charles Norris of Buckfast Abbey.

New Addington is a low-rise, low-density local authority ‘cottage’ estate, developed mainly in the post-war years. The church of the Good Shepherd was built in 1961, and followed the building of a school and presbytery. The church was built to seat 400 and cost £32,000. The architects were Tomei & Maxwell of London W1. The sanctuary was reordered in 1976 at a cost of £5,000 (architects Tomei & Mackley of Woldingham, Surrey). A year later a dalle de verre window on the theme of the Good Shepherd was installed in the north transept. Further alterations in 1980 included another window by Norris at the west end of the church.

Description

The church is orientated north-south, but this description follows conventional liturgical orientation.

The plan consists of an aisleless nave with narthex and baptistery at the west end, square ended sanctuary, north transept and enclosed weekday or winter chapel on the south side with choir gallery over. Sacristies and boiler rooms lie beyond the east end. There is a campanile at the west end, linked to the north side of the church by a flat reinforced concrete canopy. The construction is of loadbearing brick laid in garden wall bond (three stretchers and a header). This supports a slate roof which is carried on steel trusses. The windows are metal framed. The main entrance front has recessed entrance doors and above this a large window with pointed head and brick surround. To the left is the tall brick campanile, with an open timber top stage and shallow pyramidal copper roof, surmounted by a cross. There is a separate entrance on the south side, giving access to the weekday/winter chapel. The flank elevations are plainly treated, with tall square headed windows lighting the nave.

The entrance doors lead into an enclosed narthex with baptistery to the right and a stair to a gallery over to the left. The nave is a single space with a shallow segmental curved vault. The ‘south transept’ is occupied by the weekday chapel, with choir gallery over, while the north transept has seating arranged towards the sanctuary and a chapel on the east side.

The sanctuary furnishings include a green Irish marble altar, moved forward in 1976, when the tabernacle plinth and ambo in matching marble were also introduced.  The wooden reredos and tester are part of the original design. The octagonal font in the baptistery at the west end of the church is of the same dark green marble. The chief furnishings of note are the dalle de verre windows, made by or in consultation with Dom. Charles Norris of Buckfast Abbey. These include four small windows in the sanctuary, a large window on the theme of the Good Shepherd in the north transept and a slightly later window at the west end depicting Christ the Good Shepherd (replacing an etched glass engraving on the same theme by Messrs Hendra and Harper, which had been vandalised).

Heritage Details