A modern church of hexagonal design serving a post-war housing estate. 

The first church of Our Lady and St Patrick was in a converted warehouse in what is now the Meadows area. This was replaced in 1880 by a new church in London Road, built from designs by Evans & Jolly (Harwood, 247). Post-war comprehensive redevelopment in the London Road area led to a loss of the resident population and a decision to close that church in 1979. The new church was built in 1981 to serve the New Meadows Housing Area. Plans in the Catholic Building Review (1981, 56) show a large hall and presbytery but in the event only a smaller attached hall was built. The church is served by Cathedral clergy.

Description

The church is hexagonal in plan, with a linked rectangular structure housing a lobby, kitchens, WCs etc. It is of portal steel frame construction clad with brick panels, with recessed full-height windows behind exposed steel columns at the corners of the hexagon. The pitched roof is clad in concrete tiles and terminates in a large glazed roof light. The ancillary building is of loadbearing brick and also has a concrete tiled roof.

The interior is a single volume, lit from above and at the corners. The internal walls are plastered and the roof clad in stained timber boarding. There are no modern furnishings of note, but there are a number of statues and other furnishings (altar, lecterns, cross, consecration stone outside) brought from the London Road church.

Heritage Details