A mission with a resident priest was established at Brentwood in 1836, with a church built on land given by Lord Petre and opened on 26 October 1837. This building, which survives today as the Cathedral Hall, is a yellow brick Gothic design by Henry Flower, capable of seating over 200. It had its own burial ground. A clergy house built in 1836-37 also survives, now providing accommodation for the cathedral clergy.

A south aisle was added to the 1830s church in about 1845, but this soon proved insufficient to accommodate the growing congregation. In 1861 a second church was built to the south, from designs by G. R. Blount. The old church became a school (becoming the parish hall in 1969 and more recently the Cathedral Hall). The new church was a more full-blooded Victorian Gothic design (in Pevsner’s words, ‘of that assertive ugliness which is characteristic of much church work of the sixties’), built of Kentish ragstone, with a longish chancel, nave and two aisles and a southeast tower. In 1873 a convent for the Sisters of Mercy was built to the west of the church. This was a ragstone building by F. W. Tasker, and had a small chapel to the south.

In 1917 the church was made the Cathedral of the new diocese of Brentwood. In 1919, an early nineteenth-century building, Brent House (now Regency House), lying to the south at the corner of Ingrave Road and Queen’s Road, was acquired to serve as the residence of the first bishop, the Rt Rev. Bernard Ward (this was later sold and the bishop’s residence relocated to South Woodford; the current Bishop resides at Stock).

Although the church was appropriately refurnished to reflect its newly-acquired status (with F. A. Walters preparing designs for a new cathedra), it was not immediately increased in size. This did not happen until 1974, under Bishop Casey.

The rebuilding of the adjacent St Helen’s Junior School enabled the site to the north of the 1861 church to be developed. The new addition was roughly square on plan, and was built from designs by John Newton of Burles & Newton. The north aisle of the 1861 church was demolished and the north arcade of the nave opened up to join with the new worship space. The sanctuary was placed in the nave of the old church, while the old sanctuary became the Blessed Sacrament chapel. The rebuilt and extended Cathedral was capable of seating 1000, and was embellished with furnishings by John Poole (altar and ambo), Michael Clarke (tabernacle and stone base), David John (Crucifix) and others.

The Cathedral was rededicated and three altars consecrated on 3 May 1974, and the re-opening Mass was held on 5 June 1974. The final cost was approximately £104,000, excluding furnishings and enlarging and altering a Gothic building presents considerable problems. While no attempt has been made to re-produce the Gothic style, respect has been paid to its scale and materials. Externally the continued use of stone to match as closely as possible the colour and texture of the old building is hoped to ensure a unity of concept in sympathy with the old building. Internally, the linking of the new to the old has been achieved by the consistent use of two materials, timber and white textured plaster.

In 1982-83, Cathedral House, new diocesan offices designed by Laurence King were built to the west of the cathedral, an extension to the former convent building. This was two years after the consecration of the Rt Rev. Thomas McMahon as sixth Bishop of Brentwood. Bishop McMahon had previously been at Colchester, where he had become familiar with the work of the modern Classical architect Raymond Erith at Wivenhoe New Park, home of the (Catholic) Gooch family. The bishop sensed a lack of the numinous in the functional design of the new Cathedral which, although only a few years old, was also presenting maintenance problems. A major anonymous donation allowed for the possibility of rebuilding, and the bishop commissioned designs from the Dedham-based architect Quinlan Terry, partner of Raymond Erith (who died in 1973). Terry prepared plans for the replacement of the 1974 addition, working on the same footprint, but this time to a Classical design. Although recommended for approval by local planning officers, this scheme was refused planning permission by Brentwood Council on the grounds that the proposed extension would introduce an ‘incongruous and alien feature’ in the town centre conservation area. However, an appeal was lodged and the development allowed by the Secretary of State in March 1988.

Quinlan Terry was perhaps an unusual choice for a Catholic bishop in search of the numinous, being an architect with a strongly-held Protestant, indeed Calvinist, belief in the asacral nature of church buildings. However, the collaboration proved long and fruitful, with the architect’s involvement extending not just to every detail of the new cathedral, but also to improvements to its setting (including new gate piers and railings); updating and partially remodelling the original church (the Cathedral Hall); adding a portico to and refenestrating the clergy house; remodelling the cathedral offices with a neo-Georgian entrance; and converting and extending the old convent chapel for the choir school, the last of these being completed in 2001.

The rebuilt Cathedral was opened and consecrated by Cardinal Basil Hume on 31 May 1991.

Description

The church consists of two elements, the surviving portion of Blount’s church of 1860-61, and Quinlan Terry’s additions of 1989-91. The former is Gothic in style and consists of nave, south aisle, chancel (now Blessed Sacrament chapel) with south chapel, former sacristy, south porch and southwest tower and spire. The latter is Classical in style, fusing Italian and English Renaissance elements, incorporating the nave of Blount’s church to form a centralised Greek cross plan. Although the two elements are of contrasting architectural style, they are united by their use of Kentish ragstone in the walls and slate in the roof.

The outer walls of the Terry addition are divided into bays by Doric pilasters, the smooth Portland stone finish of which contrasts with the more rugged ragstone surfaces between. The pilasters support a continuous Doric triglyph frieze with balls on the parapet marking the bay divisions. The main elevation is to the north, facing the old church. This consists of nine bays, with a central a semi-circular Doric portico, reminiscent of the south portico of Wren’s St Paul’s or the west entrance of Gibbs’s St Mary-le-Strand. This is flanked on either side by pedimented bays. There is a secondary entrance (the day-to-day main entrance) in the eastern bay, with hooped overlight. The main windows are all round headed, with Venetian windows on the east and west elevations. Set back behind the parapet is a raised clerestory of yellow brick, with arched windows and a hipped roof rising to a domed octagonal lantern. The external elevations of the western arm of the Greek cross, not seen from the street, are also faced in yellow brick.

On the east elevation the wall of the new church somewhat uncomfortably abuts the gabled east end of Blount’s chancel. This has diagonal stepped buttresses at the corners and a five-light Decorated window over a string course. The south elevation of Blount’s church has gabled sacristy and porch projections, an aisle of three bays with two-light windows, and a low clerestory with spherical triangle windows. The tower is asymmetrically placed at the southwest corner and has two square stages with a transition to an octagonal belfry stage. The belfry houses a new bell cast by Whitechapel Bell Foundry for the opening of the rebuilt Cathedral as well as the old bell of 1861 (also cast by Whitechapel), which sounds the Angelus. Above the belfry stage is a short stone spire. There is a further large five-light window at the west end of the nave.

The day-to-day entrance to the cathedral is via the entrance in the eastern bay of the north elevation. This leads into a narthex area in one of the re-entrants of the Greek cross, housing a repository (in the form of a large cupboard with scrolled open pediment, made by Taylor’s of Bildeston, Suffolk, to Terry’s designs). The main space of the church resembles an Italian Renaissance court, framed by an arcade of five bays on the longer north and south sides and three bays on the east and west sides. The stone Tuscan columns have a pronounced entasis. The design of the arcade, with its roundels in the spandrels, appears to be derived from Brunelleschi’s Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence. On the south side this arcade creates a degree of separation from the Blount church, while retaining intervisibility (whereas Burles & Newton had simply formed a large opening, with a massive steel beam supporting the superstructure). Above the arcade is a Doric entablature, with the ceiling of the raised clerestory stage divided into fifteen compartments, from the central one of which rises the lantern, with timber balustrading framing the octagonal opening. The flooring is of Portland stone slabs with diamond slates set into the corners, all on one level apart from where raised up for the chief liturgical furnishings (altar, throne, ambo and font). The walls are of plain painted plaster, with some detailing, such as the guilloche patterning over the clerestory, picked out in gold leaf. The space is well-lit, with large windows of clear glass. The interior of the Blount church has a more intimate atmosphere, dimly lit by stained glass, giving that sense of the numinous sought by the Bishop, and appropriate for an area used (in the chancel) for private prayer.

The furnishing of the church consists almost entirely of pieces designed by Terry or chosen by the Bishop. The chief earlier interior of note is the Blessed Sacrament chapel, with a painted ceiling of 1911 and stained glass in the east window by Mayer and Co., depicting the Risen Christ with saints Peter, Paul, John and Andrew. On its south side is a small window of the Sacred Heart, the original dedication of the Cathedral. On the north side in a niche is a small wooden statue of the Madonna and Child. The brass sanctuary lamp dates from the late nineteenth century and comes from St Mary’s, Hornchurch. The tabernacle is a polychrome timber piece, a mini-Classical church of centralised design, acquired by the bishop in Rome. It stands on a pedestal of Pisan Nabrasina stone.

At the west end of the old church is the organ, built by the London firm of Alfred Hunter in 1881, which came from the now-redundant Anglican church of St. Mary-at- the-Walls, Colchester. This has been rebuilt and enlarged by Daniels of Clevedon, with a handsome new Classical case by Terry.

The cathedra or bishop’s throne is placed in the central bay of the southern arcade. Raised on a dais of two Portland stone steps, it was made from Terry’s designs and is of Nabrasina stone. It has two scrolled arm rests and a segmental pediment to its back, incorporating the Diocesan coat of arms; its design was inspired by a throne at San Miniato al Monte, Florence.

The throne faces towards the altar placed centrally under the lantern. This too is raised on a Portland stone plinth and is made of Nabrasina stone. It is rectangular in form, following the proportions and axis of the main space, with its mensa carried on eight Tuscan columns.

On the same north-south axis as the throne and altar is the ambo, of Nabrasina stone, octagonal in form, with panelled faces and surmounted by a gilded eagle lectern.

The other chief liturgical furnishing is the font, located in the north aisle between the two entrances. This is raised on a stone plinth, and like the other liturgical items is of Nabrasina stone. It is octagonal, inset with a Greek Cross (the design informed by Romans 6:3) and has steps down to allow those being baptised to stand in the water.

The Cathedral (including walls, railings and gates) was listed Grade II* in May 2022. List entry: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1479422?section=official-list-entry

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In the 1850s Barking was a major fishing port. With the arrival of the railway in 1854 the population began to rise steadily, despite the removal of the fishing fleet to Gorleston and Great Yarmouth in 1865. The 12^th Lord Petre gave a site near the railway station (part of the present site) and a small schoolroom/chapel was built in 1857. Designs for a permanent church were obtained from E. W. Pugin in 1865 and the new building – a single brick block with a steeply-gabled roof and a tall fleche – was opened in 1869. As with Pugin’s church at Harwich (qv), Countess Helen Tasker was a benefactor. The church had a large wooden spired bellcote towards the west end, and an internal arcade of cast iron pillars. A new presbytery was built alongside the church in 1873. The prime mover in these works was Fr James Gilligan, who died in 1887 and whose Gothic memorial tablet is in the porch of the present church.

In 1889 the original school/chapel was replaced with a larger two-storey brick school designed by a Mr Dawson of Barking. Post-war plans to remove the church and presbytery to a new site in Ripple Road had foundered by the mid-1970s and a new church was built to the designs of John Newton of Burles & Newton on an extension to the original site. Building was undertaken in two phases, with the main part of the new church constructed first alongside the old church which was then demolished (1979) and the new building extended on its site. Plans for a new hall on the site never materialised.

Description

The church is a low modern building with walls of buff-coloured brick with varied window openings and low-pitched roofs with coverings of dark-coloured artificial slate. From the rear courtyard, with its free-standing metal belfry, it is apparent that the main church is covered by a single main roof with the ridge running north-south, with a much lower pitched roof spanning across the extension.

The interior is a single rectangular space with a linoleum-covered floor and bare brick walls. The sanctuary is placed in the middle of the long axis and is marked by a stone dais with a plastered recess behind it. The main worship area has a pitched timber- boarded ceiling with exposed laminated timber beams, an upstand with side-lighting above the sanctuary and a narrow strip clerestory opposite. In one end wall is a large round window containing glass from the western rose window of the earlier Pugin church on the site. Against the other end wall is the organ and there is also a small side chapel with modern stained glass. The whole of the long wall opposite the sanctuary opens into the ‘extension’, an additional top-lit congregational space which also contains a timber entrance lobby.

The fittings include several stained glass windows brought from the earlier church; as well as the rose window, these include the font (now used as a holy water stoup) and various memorials, including that to Fr Gilligan, which is now in the outer entrance lobby.

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The enormous Becontree housing estate was developed by the London County Council from the mid-1920s. Three new Catholic parishes were created in Barking and Dagenham to serve the increased population and in the early 1930s the Pallottine Order agreed to service a fourth parish, known as New Barking. Thomas Henry Birchall Scott, architect and surveyor to both the Westminster Archdiocese and the Diocese of Brentwood, was appointed in 1933 to design a hall/church on a site in Longbridge Road obtained from the LCC. The new building was opened in October 1935 and a wooden hall was built alongside in 1936. This hall burnt down in 1942.

In 1949-50 a new presbytery with accommodation for four priests was erected on the site. Discussions about rebuilding the church and providing a new hall began in the 1970s and eventually in 1990-91 a new church was built alongside the original church, which became a parish hall, together with some sheltered accommodation on part of the church land. The new building was built with only a small number of openings in the outside walls because of the considerable local traffic noise.

Description

The original 1935 church/hall is a long rectangular building of brown brick with a low-pitched slate roof and a tall, more steeply-gabled, two-storey forebuilding at the west end. The 1990 church has a concrete frame and is faced with red and blue brick with red brick dressings and slate roofs. The west front to the street has two gabled elements like the 1930s forebuilding and behind them a lower curtain wall encloses the church and is pierced by irregular rectangular openings, with a secondary entrance at the rear facing the presbytery.

The entrance lobby leads to the principal worship space which is arranged on the diagonal with a spine lantern over the central aisle. The shallow-pitched timbered roof slopes down to a large north chapel and smaller south corner chapel and there is a perimeter passage behind piloti. Most of the furnishings are contemporary with the church and include some striking stained glass in the south chapel by John Lawson of Goddard & Gibbs.

Image Credit

Marathon on geograph.org.uk – licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Licence.

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The first church (now the school hall) was built in 1928 by Thomas Henry Birchall Scott, surveyor to the dioceses of Westminster and Brentwood. This Mass centre was initially served from St Peter and St Paul, Ilford. The first resident priest arrived in 1940 and in 1951 Barkingside was erected as a parish. The present church was designed  by  David  Rodney  Burles  of  Westcliffe-on-Sea,  who  used  a  very  similar design for the contemporary, but smaller, church of the Assumption at Hainault (qv) of 1952-3. The builders were Messrs J. Leary & Sons of Stratford. The foundation stone was laid on 25 October 1953; the church was first used in December 1954 and was officially opened by Bishop Beck on 6 March 1955.

In 1979-80 Austin Winkley of Williams & Winkley undertook a £43,000 reordering scheme, executed by the builders Messrs Duncan & Duncan of Hornchurch. A weekday chapel was created within the original chancel and new confessionals were inserted. New Portland stone furnishings were installed. The church was consecrated by Bishop Casey on 29 April 1980. A few years ago, a new stone chair was installed and in 2007 a mosaic over the west door, the latter commemorating the twenty-fifth anniversary of Pope John Paul’s visit to Britain.

Description

The style of the church is plain Early Christian. It is built in plum-coloured stock brick laid in English bond, with a pantiled roof and tiled details in the elevations. The plan is longitudinal, comprising an aisled nave, with a slim bell tower at the northwest and a sacristy with a small meeting room at the east. The nave roof is pitched, while the roofs of the aisles and the sacristy are flat.

The west front of the nave projects forward of the end walls of the aisles and is dominated by a large circular window. Below is an arched doorway, flanked by pairs of small arched windows. The tympanum of the door is filled with a Pantocrator mosaic commemorating the visit of Pope John Paul II (2007, Tessa Hunkin of the Mosaic Workshop) and the inscription ‘haec domus dei est et porta coeli’. The west faces of the aisles also have arched doors with pairs of small windows above them. The north aisle has an additional pair of windows beside the door.

The north elevation is more austere, with five arched aisle windows and six shorter arched clerestory windows. The window forms of the other elements distinguish their functions: The windows of the sacristy and the meeting room are straight-headed, as single windows or in groups of three or four. The entrance to the heating chamber, whose chimney at the northeast balances the bell tower, has a row of four segmentally-headed openings. Like the west front, the east gable has a large circular window.

The nave arcade has plain arches supported on plain pillars with simplified capitals and pedestals, as well as three Tuscan stone columns. The nave roof is panelled with a decorative grid; the aisle roofs only have exposed transverse beams. The interior used to be a single-volume space, without any separation between chancel and nave. The space is six bays long, as defined by the clerestory windows, with an additional windowless bay at the west occupied by the organ gallery. In 1980 a weekday chapel was inserted at the easternmost bay. Of lower height than the east window and the arcade arches, it is lit by a glazed lantern. Inside the chapel, niches on either side of a small Risen Christ statue hold small carved statues of Our Lady with the Christ child and St Joseph. On the north wall is the foundation stone, and above the door to the Blessed Sacrament chapel is a small stained glass roundel of the Agnus Dei.

The bell is rung via a bell rope on the organ gallery. On the front of the gallery are small statues of St Joseph and St Anthony, flanked by much larger statues of St Augustine of Canterbury and St Patrick. The latter stand on large baroque-style timber pedestals carved with putti heads, swags, egg-and-dart and gadrooning. They are also carved with the monograms of St Joseph and St Mary, and might originally have been placed in side chapels, possibly in the 1928 church. There are two pairs of arched windows from the narthex into the nave.

At the southwest and northwest corners are the gallery stair and repository, respectively. Near the southwest and northwest are the confessionals (inserted in 1979-80), simple structures with a rounded west corner each. Beside the north confessional stands a statue of the Sacred Heart. At the northeast is the Lady Chapel with a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes and an arched east window. At the southeast is the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, containing a small stone altar with the tabernacle between two thin blind arches and an arched east window. The sanctuary has modern Portland stone furnishings of 1979-80 and the stone chair in a matching style which was added in c.2004. Above it hangs a large timber crucifix. The Stations are conventional, unframed timber reliefs.

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There was a Mass centre at Vange as early as 1925, a chapel of ease served from Stanford-le-Hope/Corringham. A priest was appointed to Basildon in 1953 and the parish erected in 1955.  St Basil’s was sited to serve the eastern part of the new town. Designs  were  prepared  by  John  Newton of  Burles  &  Newton of  Southend,  work commenced in 1955 and the church was opened in October 1956. The church was consecrated on 6 October 1981. Since 2003 it has been the centre of the Basildon Team Ministry.

Description

St Basil’s is designed in the modern style of the mid-1950s (Bettley/Pevsner describes the church as ‘quiet, dignified and sensible’), with a framework of reinforced concrete and wall panels of buff-coloured brick.  The frames and mullions of the windows are also of concrete and the shallow-pitched main roof is covered in copper.  The plan is conventional, i.e. longitudinal, with a tall nave and long chancel under the same roof, a northwest tower and a northeast porch and chapel.  The east end of the church has a single-storey link to the contemporary presbytery.  The west end wall is canted and the whole of the upper part is a wide window of eleven lights in three main sections. Below the window is the main entrance, flanked by pierced panels of cast concrete. The tower is set in from the west front and has a base with cast concrete decoration, brick sides and a tall open belfry with a pitched copper-covered roof.  The side walls of both nave and chancel are divided into bays by the concrete uprights of the main frame, with plain brick below and a continuous clerestory of tall mullioned windows. The uprights in the chancel are more closely spaced than those in the nave.  Attached to the eastern side of the chancel is a single-storey structure with a triple pitched roof containing the north porch and the side chapel. The east wall is blind and rises above a flat roofed single-storey sacristy.

The interior is tall and light, thanks to the virtually continuous clerestory windows in the nave and sanctuary.   At the west end is a gallery, glazed in beneath to form a vestibule. Eastwards of the gallery the nave is of five bays defined by piloti set in from the wall on either side forming passage aisles. The ceiling over the aisles is flat; in the shallow-pitched central section over the nave, the concrete beams and purlins are frankly expressed. On the north side of the first bay of the nave is a former baptistery in the base of the tower.   The easternmost bay contains the north entrance and an open organ gallery on the south side. The organ itself was brought from Brentwood Cathedral and installed in 1990. The long chancel is narrower than the nave but the main ceiling is continuous.  On the south side is an open passageway to the sacristies. On the north side a glazed partition divides the main space from the side chapel. The sanctuary has clearly been re-ordered with a nave altar although the steps of the former high altar survive. The east end wall is now simply a large recess with a hanging crucifix. The mahogany benches in the nave are original and were designed by the architect.

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A Mass centre at Laindon was established in 1915, served from Billericay. The first church was opened in November 1925, and was the Catholic chapel from the Empire Exhibition at Wembley, relocated by Fr Higley of Limehouse to serve Catholics from the East End of London who had settled in the Laindon area. A second (additional) church opened in 1971. The present church was built on a new site, and was opened in December 1991. It was consecrated in May 1992.

Description

The church  is  part  of  a  modern  complex  of  buildings  with  a  vaguely vernacular character and all built of white brick with artificial slate roof coverings. It is octagonal on plan with a conical roof. Entrance to the building is by a large projecting porch with glazed sides and a pitched roof. On either side of the porch are single-storey links to the two-storey presbytery and to a substantial hall with a hipped roof. At the rear of the building two sides have broad triple windows with segmental heads while the other sides are blind.

The interior is a straightforward octagonal space with bare brick walls and a tented ceiling with the laminated roof timbers exposed. The sanctuary is on a raised dais on the side opposite the entrance.

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A Mass centre was established in September 1958 and the first resident priest appointed in November of the same year. The parish was erected in 1960 and the first church opened in May 1963. In 1972 a large multi-functional church hall was built, as the first phase of a new parish complex. The parish centre was originally intended to be nearer the town centre, but a change in the road pattern necessitated the allocation to the diocese of the present site. The present church and presbytery were added in 1979-80 from designs by Burles & Newton, the church opening on 31 May 1980. The three buildings are grouped round a small courtyard, open on one side. The church was designed to seat about 300 people.

The church was designed as a low maintenance, low energy building. It is centrally planned with a pyramidal roof covered in artificial slate and external walls of dull red brick. The prominent roof is carried on laminated timber trusses. The building is currently (October 2011) being enlarged and the interior was not accessible at the time of the writer’s visit.

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St Vincent’s lies in the northern part of the LCC’s huge Becontree housing estate, which was developed from the 1920s. The first church, a temporary building, was built in 1923. In 1927 the parish was erected and the first resident priest appointed; the presbytery may date from this time. A parish hall was built in 1929. In May 1933 the present church was opened. It was built from designs by Geoffrey Raymond of Scoles and Raymond. The church was consecrated in December 1973. In 1989 the sanctuary was reordered by Richard Hurley of the Dublin firm of Tyndall Hogan Hurley.

Description

A large church built in dull red brick with stone dressings and roof coverings of concrete tiles. On plan the building comprises an aisleless nave with a western narthex, a small south western baptistery and a short sanctuary narrower than the nave. The building is in a mixture of Gothic styles. The single-storey narthex has canted sides, three large pointed doorways with small paired windows between and a stepped parapet with stone coping. In the tympanum of the main west door is a carved and painted stone and mosaic depiction of Sacred Heart. Behind rises the tall west gable which is set forward slightly from the body of the nave and has a large five- light window with slowing tracery and a triple-trefoiled window in the head of the gable above. The outer parts of the west end wall are blind and have crow-stepped rooflines continuing the main gable. On the north side the crow-stepping is continued down on a projection housing the gallery stair. The side elevations are divided into five bays by plain buttresses and in each bay is a large rectangular window of three lights with a hood-mould over set high in the wall. The parapets are stepped up over the buttresses.

Internally the nave is one large space with a boarded and painted hammerbeam roof. The walls are plain plastered and the floor is parquet. At the west end is a timber organ gallery with a passage below. The windows are all clear glazed. Many of the leaded lights were apparently replaced after bomb damage in World War II. In the north wall is a small recess with a side altar and a statue of St Vincent de Paul dating from 1949. At the east end a tall pointed arch opens into the sanctuary, which has a boarded pointed ceiling, windows in the side walls and a blind east wall with an elaborate pinnacle reredos made of stone and gold mosaic, with the inscription Sanctus Sanctus Sanctus on the wall above. The reredos apparently dates from 1948. The sanctuary arch is flanked by lower pointed arches leading to the Lady Chapel and the chapel of the Sacred Heart, which have rib vaulted ceilings. In the 1989 reordering a new altar was installed on a broad stone platform at the east end of the nave and the sanctuary was divided from the body of the church by a half-height flimsy-looking timber screen, behind which is a small day chapel. This may be convenient but it is not a happy visual arrangement.

Principal fittings include the nave altar which is a single block of Bath stone carved by Angela Godfrey, a white marble Gothic font of unusual rectangular form and the naturalistic bronze eagle lectern. The remaining timber benches are doubtless original.

The post Becontree – St Vincent appeared first on Taking Stock.

A Mass centre was established in Benfleet in 1927, served initially from Leigh-on-Sea. The first church (subsequently used as a hall) was opened in September 1949. A proposal for a new church was put forward in 1965 and designs were prepared by Burles, Newton & Partners, but the project was abandoned.  The present church was built in 1975-76, also from designs by Burles and Newton. It has subsequently been enlarged with a new parish hall.

Description

The church is in a simple modern style and is basically a square on plan with virtually windowless external walls of buff brick enlivened by three stub-sided towers and with a monopitch roof overall covered with concrete tiles.  Internally the church is a single space with bare brick walls and three glulam timber trusses supporting the boarded timber roof. The principal light comes from a glazed western gable, now concealed externally by the new hall building, and from top-lighting in the external stub towers, one of which contains the tabernacle. The fittings are mostly of the 1970s.

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In 1884, Mass was said at 108 High Street Billericay, a house owned by Edmund Cole. In 1887-88 priests from Stock and Romford said Mass in the hut housing the Irish workers employed on the railway line between Shenfield and Southend. From 1888, various buildings in Billericay served temporarily as Mass centres. In 1910, the Ursulines opened a convent at 129 High Street. A resident priest lived in a cottage in the High Street from 1910 until 1932. When the Ursulines moved away in 1913, plans were made for a permanent parish church.

The foundation stone was laid by Bishop Butt on 21 November 1913. The first part of the church, comprising only the easternmost three bays, was opened in March 1914 and the official opening took place on 8 September 1914. The architect was Edward Goldie (1856-1921), son of the better-known Catholic architect George Goldie. The style of the church was apparently modelled on Lombardic churches but is also similar to other churches by Edward Goldie, e.g. St Lawrence, Sidcup, and St Joseph, Bromley which share features such as the chequerboard pattern in the gable and the circular windows. The site in Billericay had been donated by Edmund Cole, in whose parents’ house Mass had been celebrated in the 1880s. His sister Agnes gave the original high altar and the font. William Dunn of Lilystone Hall gave £700 towards building costs and provided the remainder as an interest-free loan. This first part of the church cost only £1,500. The original Lady altar (later Blessed Sacrament altar, now removed) came from Lilystone Hall. The parish was canonically erected in 1918. In 1919 Cardinal Bourne dedicated a crucifix in front of the church as a war memorial (replaced in 1981).

In 1925-26, the church was extended westwards and the sacristy added, presumably to Goldie’s plans and possibly by his son, Joseph, who continued the practice. The total cost of the church building was in 1926 just below £3,000 (excluding furnishings). The sacristy cost £300 and the furnishings another £600. In the late 1920s or early 1930s, a small hall was built behind the church. In 1967 the current presbytery was completed.

In 1968 the church was reordered; the high altar was replaced by a new forward altar and the former Lady Chapel became the Blessed Sacrament Chapel. In 1971, the small hall was replaced by the Canon Roche Social Centre which was extended in 1973, 1976-77 and 1996. In 1981, a new porch was added, the statues on the west front removed, a new narthex screen and gallery stair installed and the pipe organ replaced by an electronic organ. The new organ was placed where the confessional had been, and a new confessional was created at the northwest where the font had stood. In 1985 the sanctuary floor was raised and new sanctuary furnishings installed. A new Lady Chapel was created at the southeast. The church was consecrated on 29 November 1985 by Bishop McMahon.

Description

The easternmost three bays were built in 1913-14, the remainder of the church in 1925-26. The large west porch was added in 1981. The church is faced in red and brown brick laid in English bond (stretcher bond in the porch) with tile details and a tiled roof. (The change in brickwork between the 1913-14 and 1925-26 work is clearly visible.) The plan is longitudinal and consists of an apsed nave with side aisles (of which the northern one also terminates in an apse) and a large west porch. The sacristy links the house and the church at the southeast.

The west porch has a recessed doorway under a gable which is modelled on the original west doorway and which holds the original doors with large decorative hinges. The portions on either side are flat-roofed with metal ‘cornices’ and round- headed windows to match those of the church. The west front has circular windows in the end walls of the aisles. The central part, framed by buttresses, has two round- headed windows at clerestory level alternating with three niches which until 1981 held statues of St John the Baptist, St Mary Magdalene and St Mary. Above these is a central circular window under a relieving arch and a bellcote with two bells. (For many years, one of the bells was only a concrete replica.) The recessed fields of the gable on either side of the circular window are filled with red and brown bricks in chequerboard pattern.

The west porch with its timber-panelled ceiling has doors at the south and west. The six-bay nave has an open kingpost roof. The round-headed clerestory windows are directly above an arcade on square pillars. Window and arch voussoirs are of exposed brick, the remainder is plastered. Below the gallery is a brass plaque to the Fallen of the First World War. The timber gallery front has open arches and two niches. Between the two west windows are the pipes for the organ.

The northwest corner, formerly the baptistery area, is partitioned off as a reconciliation room. It contains a circular stained glass window depicting the Ecce Homo and a statue of Our Lady. The north aisle has a statue of St Joseph. The Blessed Sacrament Chapel at the northeast has a silver tabernacle on a stone pedestal side lit by two windows in the apse.

There is a small window in the apex of the east gable, above the chancel arch. The sanctuary is lit by four windows in the apse, all filled with clear glass. The altar painting is a copy of the central panel of a triptych by Perugino in the Pazzi chapel in Florence. The stone ambo, altar, chair and font all date from the reordering of 1985. At the east end of the south aisle is a small circular niche created in 1985 as a Lady Chapel.

The south aisle has a square niche (formerly the confessional, now filled with chairs) and near the west a large marble memorial erected by John Henry Saville, 6th Earl of Mexborough (1868-1945) for his aunt Miss Anne Raphael (died 1890) of Stockwell Hall, Little Burstead. The west end of the aisle has a circular stained glass window of Our Lady of Sorrows (Mater Dolorosa). The floors of the church are partly tiled, partly woodblock with some modern carpeting. The Stations of the Cross are plaster quatrefoils. The nave has modern timber benches and modern chandeliers.

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