An elegant Italianate church by F. W. Tasker with a good interior and several furnishings of note, including a side altar from the first Brompton Oratory.

The mission is the successor to one in Virginia Street and was founded in 1871 from Commercial Road (qv). The site of a former workhouse was acquired for £7,250, and a church built in 1877-79. The architect was Francis William Tasker (1848-1904), and the builder Mr Nightingale. The tender for the church was £4,000 and for the presbytery £1,000. The church was opened on 15 August 1879. The original congregation mainly comprised Irish dockworkers – hence the dedication to St Patrick.

Charles Willock Dawes (not Willcock as in Pevsner), who died in 1899, and his wife Mary (died 1896) were the benefactors for the church and schools. They also paid for the addition of a further nave bay, narthex, and some furnishings in 1892. The completed church was reopened on 9 June 1892 and consecrated on 22 May 1902.

At some point a mural by P. Greenwood on the east wall was mostly painted over and the pediment and columns of the high altar reredos removed. The exterior was restored in 1987-88 by Simon Crosse and Roger Jorgenson of Feilden & Mawson.

Description

The list description (below} is quite brief, especially in regard to the interior and its furnishings.

The church was built in 1877-79 and enlarged to the west in 1892. It is built of London stock brick with a Roman pantile roof (renewed with concrete tiles). The plan is rectangular with a semi-circular baptistery projection at the northwest. The east gable has a small iron-frame bellcote. Originally, entrances at the northwest and west led into the narthex; the west door now provides step-free access while a partition has been inserted in the narthex to form a square porch at the northwest corner. The narthex contains marble plaques commemorating the donors and recording the main dates of the church.

The interior is six bays in length, of which the eastern two accommodate the sanctuary with Lady Chapel to north and organ to south. The coffered timber wagon roof over the nave is unpainted, while its continuation over the sanctuary is painted. The nave is divided from the flat-ceiled aisles by giant Ionic columns of Bath stone, which in the sanctuary also have swags.

The west end has a large circular window – typical for Tasker- whose upper curve is echoed in the profile of the wagon roof. There is a modern green marble plaque listing priests who have served the church and predecessor chapel in Virginia Street. An Art Nouveau bronze plaque by Henry Price (1900) in a marble surround is a memorial to the deceased staff and pupils of St Patrick’s school.

Near the entrance at the northwest is the semi-circular baptistery with wrought-iron rails around the octagonal stone font. Close by are a large, seated figure of St Peter by Mayer of Munich and a plaque to Bertrand Ward Davies, Lieutenant in the Suffolk Regiment (died 1916). A pedimented timber confessional in the north side is placed directly opposite an identical one at the south. Further east is a shrine to St Joseph with two Ionic pilasters with a straight entablature framing a statue of the saint.

The high altar of 1880 is of coloured marbles. A large painting in the reredos over the altar depicts the Crucifixion; most accounts of the church attribute it to Greenwood, but a contemporary account (The Tablet, 23 August 1879) say it is by a ‘Mr Bower’. It is flanked by Corinthian pilasters but the original columns and pediment have been removed. The wrought iron altar rails survive between the easternmost pair of Ionic columns. The sanctuary now extends forward of them and the timber forward altar (repurposed from the shrine of St Patrick) and modern lectern are placed in front of the rails.

The Lady Chapel at the northeast is screened to two sides with a classical timber screen. The Lady altar with pedimented reredos was installed in 1884, having come from the first (1853) Brompton Oratory, where it had been in the chapel of St Philip. The altar painting of the Virgin and Child is in the style of Murillo and is said to be Spanish; it probably came from the Virginia Street chapel. The frontal is painted with the Marian monogram and floral decoration. Above is a semi-circular mural depicting the Annunciation by P. Greenwood which (with a painting in the corresponding position in the south chapel) is all that visibly remains of Greenwood’s painted scheme for the east wall.

The space at the southeast, with timber screens similar to those at the Lady Chapel, is occupied by the organ (rebuilt by Gray & Davidson in 1880) on an elevated level. Behind is another semi-circular mural by Greenwood, depicting St Cecilia. In front of the timber screen is a statue of the Sacred Heart on a marble pedestal similar to the high altar. The south aisle has a statue of St Patrick by Mayer, a large crucifix by Raffl of Paris and a large pieta with rails of alabaster and iron (by Jones & Willis) in memory of Rev. Francis Cotter Beckley (1843-1908), a former mission priest. The Stations (1880) are framed reliefs with gables. The pine benches in the nave appear to be original but have been lightened in colour. The floor is of woodblock laid in herringbone pattern.

Text amended and new photos added by AHP 11.8.2025

List description

II 

1879. Architect, Tasker. Narthex added 1892. Yellow stock brick with pedimented gable ends with stone cornice. Classical design, high paired rectangular windows above stone band. Narthex has 5 arches. Panelled doors and wrought iron entrance gates. Interior has large Ionic columns, nave with timber wagon roof.

Listing NGR: TQ3470780123

Heritage Details