In1823 Fr William Foley was sent by Vicar Apostolic Milner to establish a mission in Northampton. He acquired the present site, then lying on the edge of the town, which had once belonged to the medieval priory of St Andrew (from which St Thomas Becket had fled into exile). A chapel dedicated to St Andrew was opened on 25 October 1825, and alongside this Fr Foley also built a house and a small private school. The chapel survives as the Cathedral sacristy, complete with its original altar, and the house as Cathedral House.

By 1840 the congregation had outgrown this small chapel and William Wareing, newly-appointed  Vicar  Apostolic  for  the  Eastern  District,  commissioned  A.W.N. Pugin to design a new chapel dedicated to St Felix in 1843-4. This building  lay alongside and to the south of the existing chapel, to which it was connected by a narrow link. It was built at a cost of £1,200 and opened on 24 June 1844. This chapel served a seminary which was then established in the old church, with an inserted upper floor to provide dormitory accommodation for the students. The space between this building and the 1825 house was infilled with a new building housing a library on the ground floor with a chapel above. Whether Pugin was responsible for the design of this too is not clear. The Buildings of England states that the oriel window to the chapel, on the front elevation of the building, is ‘an original 14th century two-light window re-used’; the authority for this comment has not been established, but the projection now contains a modern single-light window.

In 1851, after the restoration of the hierarchy, Pugin prepared designs for a new cathedral, but there were difficulties in acquiring further land. No further progress was made until the appointment in 1858 of  Francis Kerrill Amherst as second Bishop of Northampton. Amherst had been taught by Pugin at Oscott, and Pugin was to bid unsuccessfully for the hand of his sister Mary. Pugin died in 1852, but in 1860 Bishop Amherst asked his son Edward Welby Pugin to prepare ambitious designs for a new cathedral in Decorated Gothic style, with a tall northwest tower, slender spire and a long choir with side chapels. However, only the nave and apsidal chancel were completed. E.W. Pugin reversed the orientation of the church, placing the high altar at the west end; at the east end, the old chapel of St Felix was retained to give more seating accommodation, facing west. In this form the cathedral, re-dedicated to Our Lady and St Thomas of Canterbury, was opened on 29 April 1864, when Cardinal Manning preached.

In 1877 the Bishop moved out of Cathedral House until such time as he was able to occupy the new Bishop’s House, which was built at the expense of the wealthy Catholic widow Mrs Lyne Stephens, who also paid for churches at Shefford, Cambridge (Our Lady and the English Martyrs) and Lynford, Norfolk. The Buildings of England gives the architect as S.J. Nicholl. The building accounts state that the cost of the building was £12,339 10s 9d, of which the Bishop only had to contribute £1 4s 6d. The Bishop occupied the house in 1885. In the previous year Nicholl had designed the church and presbytery at Shefford, Bedfordshire, also at Mrs Lyne Stephens’ expense.

After the Second World War Bishop Parker put forward plans for the completion of the building along more fitting, cathedralesque lines. He had been impressed by the Leicester architect Albert Herbert’s designs for a tower for Pugin’s church at Mount St Bernard’s Abbey, Leicestershire, and plans were drawn up once again to reverse the orientation of the building and to build a new east end with tower, transepts and sanctuary in the Early English style. This required the demolition of the 1844 A.W.N. Pugin chapel. The foundation stone was laid Cardinal Griffin on 15 June1955 and after various delays the completed building was consecrated by Bishop Parker on 21 June 1960. The contractors were the local firm of A. Glenn and Sons.

Further modifications were made in 1975-6 when a forward altar was placed at the crossing under the tower. At the same time a large pulpit which had been installed in 1881 was removed to open up views of the sanctuary from the south aisle, the bishop’s throne and font were repositioned in the sanctuary area and the interior was re-lit and redecorated. The architects for this work, which cost £42,000, were The Greenhalgh and Williams Partnership of Bolton. A new organ was also installed at this time, made by Hendrik ten Bruggencate at a cost of £8,660.

In 1998 there were further changes to the sanctuary to allow more room for concelebration, with a new timber altar and seating. New shrines to Our Lady and St Thomas were set up in the south transept, the font was re-sited to the north transept and a large triptych by Stephen Foster was installed at the east end.

More recently an altar and tabernacle plinth have been acquired from the former chapel of the Southwark diocesan seminary at Wonersh, Surrey.

Description

The church is of cruciform plan, consisting of nave with aisles and western apse (the sanctuary and nave of E.W. Pugin’s church), with eastern extensions of 1960 consisting of a tower over the crossing, transepts, chancel and south chancel chapel and north porch.

The E.W. Pugin building is Decorated Gothic in style, built of rock-faced Ancaster and Ketton stone, with a banded slate roof. It consists of a nave and aisles of five bays, with an addition of 1960 at the west end of the south aisle, faced in brick and built as a baptistery. Paired clerestory windows with Dec tracery, surmounted by hoodmoulds rising as pointed gables, the pinnacles of which now break though the extended eaves of the roof (Pugin designed a parapet here, which no doubt gave maintenance problems). At the apsidal west end there are taller windows to the former sanctuary, two lights then three, the larger windows with taller gables. There is a Gothic west doorway in the centre of the apse, formed in 1960 when the building was re-orientated.

The 1960 work is in a plainer Early English style, and is faced in Stamford brick, with stone plinths and reconstituted stone for the dressings. At the junction with Pugin’s nave there is a broad, squat crossing with clasping corner buttresses, narrow lancet windows to light the interior and shorter windows on the upper belfry stage; above these a semi-embattled parapet. Short transepts with corner buttresses and high-level circular windows project to north and south, that to the south linking to the 1825 chapel. The tall gabled chancel also has corner buttresses, and stepped lancet windows; it is flanked by a chapel on the north side and entrance porch on the south side, each recessed behind the line of the east front, with single east lancet windows and raised parapet gables.

Inside, Pugin’s nave is broad and high. Arcades of clustered columns on high plinths have capitals of richly carved naturalistic foliage, with polychrome figures of bishops and saints at the springing of the hood moulds. A moulded band runs from east to west at clerestory sill level, upon which sit wall posts rising to a fine and complex timber roof with an open raised section with scissor braces and multiple rafters. The clerestory windows are paired trefoils with circular quatrefoil tracery lights; the aisle windows are circular, with elaborate Dec tracery set within pointed arch recesses. There are arched bay divisions in the aisles, with circular openings in the spandrel adjoining the nave arcading. Confessionals give off the north aisle, and the 1960 baptistery at the west end of the south aisle has now been converted to WCs. Alongside this at the west end of the nave (E.W. Pugin’s sanctuary) a choir loft has been inserted (circa 1960). Tall two- and three-light west windows with Dec tracery and stained glass (described below), and carved polychromatic corbels to the wall posts, with angels bearing musical instruments.

At the crossing, arches with plain chamfered mouldings, dating from 1960. The raised crossing is lit by two windows on each side, there is a flat ceiling divided into compartments, with a central circular trap to allow for the lowering of the bell. As in the nave, the walls are plastered and painted, but in the northwest corner is an attached internal stone turret providing access to the belfry stage, a quirky touch. The short transepts project to north and south; that to the north has an organ gallery. The sanctuary is square-ended and has a painted ceiling decorated by Hardman Powell & Co. of Birmingham; tall flanking Blessed Sacrament chapel to south and entrance porch from car park to the north.

The main furnishings are as follows:

• Stained glass at the west end (E.W. Pugin’s chancel) by Hardman, dating from circa 1864. Includes depictions of saints with local associations: St Crispin, patron of shoemakers, St Edmund, St Dorothy, St Hubert (patron of hunters), St Thomas Becket. At the bottom of the central window notable ecclesiastical antiquities of Northampton: the Eleanor Cross, the church of the Holy Sepulchre and St Peter’s.
• Nineteenth century stained glass in the chancel from the former Catholic chapel at Ashby St Legers.
• One south clerestory stained glass window erected to the memory of Bishop Wareing by the clergy of the diocese, depicting the bishop presenting the chapel of St Felix to St William.
• In the Blessed Sacrament chapel, east window by Joseph Nuttgens, 1998, depicting the Last Supper, Crucifixion and Noli me tangere.
• The altar in the Blessed Sacrament chapel, with an inset panel of the Agnus Dei, is the cut-down surviving portion of the altar from Amherst’s cathedral.
• A brass memorial to Bishop Amherst, possibly by Hardman, formerly in the centre aisle but now remounted on the wall at the west end under the gallery.
• A brass inscription over the tomb of Bishop Parker (d.1975) in the Blessed Sacrament chapel.
• Ancaster stone font with inset low-relief carving of the Holy Spirit descending; painted ogee cover and chain mechanism. Date not established, possibly circa 1960. The font has had several locations and is currently located beneath the organ gallery in the north transept.
• The organ, built in 1976 by Hendrik ten Bruggencate.
• Also under the north transept gallery, chapter seating presumably previously in the chancel. Near here, the entrance to the sacristy, housed in the 1825 church and retaining its original altar and the choir stalls from the pre-1976 chancel (not seen).
• A large crucifix hanging from the chancel arch, a gift of the Holy Cross sisters at Hayle.
• At  the  east  end,  a  polychromatic  carved  timber  triptych  depicting the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, in the manner of Giotto, made by Stephen Foster for the reordering of the sanctuary in 1998.
• Pine nineteenth century pews in the nave.
• In the tower, a single bell, by Taylor’s of Loughborough, 1956.
• Modern Stations of the Cross, carved in Austrian oak, donated by parishioners.

Entry amended by AHP 19.09.2024

List description

II

Nave and aisles mainly 1863 by Edward Welby Pugin, enlarging on much smaller church, 1844 by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. Crossing tower, transepts and chancel 1948-55 by Albert Herbert. C19 parts in Decorated style, brick with stone dressings.

Listing NGR: SP7529061672

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In the late seventeenth century George Holman of Warkworth Castle (about eight miles south of Aston-le-Walls) retained a Catholic chaplain. The castle descended to the Eyre family, who sold it in 1805, providing a chapel and priest’s house at the adjoining hamlet of Overthorpe. The Catholic Plowden family owned the manor from the seventeenth century and in 1827 Edmund Plowden paid for the building of a chapel at Aston-le-Walls. A schoolroom was opened in 1832.

The church was restored in 1912, when the exterior was rendered in cement and marble chippings and the interior woodwork was varnished. In 1899 the Great Central Railway was opened, with a junction at Woodford Halse (about three miles from Aston-le-Walls); with the influx of railway workers a church dedicated to St Joseph was opened there in 1917 (now closed and converted to residential use). In 1991 an extension was added to the west end of the church at Aston-le-Walls and the bell turret added.

Description

The altar faces northeast but for the purposes of this report all references to compass points will assume a due east orientation. The church comprises a nave and sanctuary in one with a two-storey south porch, a small room in a projection within the angle between porch and nave, a louvred bell turret at the west end and a large sacristy projection on the north side of the sanctuary. The sanctuary has diagonal buttresses with two set offs. The whole of the exterior walls are covered in cement render with marble chippings. The roofs are covered in Welsh slate.

The porch entrance has a plain chamfered gothic arch with hood mould, all cemented over. A crucifix above is set on a lozenge-shaped wooden panel beneath a gabled canopy. There are four windows on the south side, first a pair of gothic windows with stone dressings and Y-tracery, then two plain lancets (narrower to the sanctuary) with stone dressings. All have moulded hoodmoulds. On the north side there are four broad lancet windows, only the westernmost one with Y-tracery. The sacristy is a plain gabled structure of generous size, which just fits in between lancet windows. There is a domestic-style external door. On the north side opposite the porch is a doorway with moulded lintel and a spherical triangle window above. There are no openings in the east or west walls.

The interior has no division between the nave and sanctuary, has plain plastered walls and has a varnished boarded roof with exposed trusses. There is a deep west gallery supported on two slender columns of 1820s character and a simple gothic balustrade. Access is via a generously proportioned metal spiral stair set within a blind gothic arch in the west wall, part of the 1991 alterations when the west wall was moved several metres further west. The sanctuary has poor quality gothic panelling and curious applied gothic arches against the east wall in a tripartite arrangement. Stone altar rails of elaborate gothic design. Sacred texts on the eastern truss. Stone altar with integral gothic canopy over the tabernacle. Statues on brackets to either side. The chief interest of the interior is the stained glass, with a number of windows, several signed by J. Vosch of Brussels, 1921. Hanging lamps of traditional oil lamp designs.

Amended by AHP 24.01.2021

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The church was built to serve the large housing estate of Bedgrove, to the southwest of Aylesbury town centre. The site was bought for £9,000 in 1966, and construction began in 1968. It was opened and blessed on July 9 1969. According to Mr Butler at Long Crendon church, Our Lady’s was built by Crendon Concrete, who also built the church at Long Crendon. Both buildings are of portal frame construction. Initially the church was served from St Joseph’s in Aylesbury town centre, but by 1970 had become a parish in its own right, with a house acquired in nearby Pevensey Close to serve as the presbytery. The church was consecrated on 8 July 1994.

Description

The church is of polygonal plan and concrete portal frame construction. The walls are externally clad with brick, with a continuous clerestory running around the main space. Lower appendages at the entrance comprise a lobby and chapel.

The interior is a single undivided space, the reinforced concrete piers rising Pantheon-like to a large central oculus. Between these, the wall surfaces are of exposed brick, the lighting coming from the high-level clerestory and the oculus. The seating consists of traditional benches, brought from elsewhere.

Amended by AHP 24.01.2021

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In 1843 or 1844 a mission dedicated to St Martin was established in Aylesbury, and the Earl of Shrewsbury gave money for an altar. A contemporary account described the neighbourhood as ‘most benighted, and there is not perhaps a more furiously anti-Catholic locality in England (The Tablet, 3 February 1844). According to the parish history, plans for a church were drawn up A. W. Pugin, but independent verification for this has not been found. The mission closed in 1857. Thereafter the small number of Aylesbury Catholics had to travel to Northampton or Wolverton, although Mass was sometimes said in local houses.

In 1888 Bishop Riddell sent Fr James Collins to re-establish the mission. A site was obtained at the bottom of the High Street and a large new presbytery built, into which Fr Collins moved in 1892. A temporary iron church was built alongside this, opened by the Bishop of Northampton in December of that year. In 1899 Fr Thomas Scott took over the mission, and made various alterations to the iron church, including a rood screen, and the placing of a large painting of an angel at the west end. In 1904 a stone font was given.

In April 1934 the bishop gave permission for a new, permanent church, to be built on the site of the iron church. On 14 January 1937 the bishop laid the foundation stone, and the church was officially opened on 14 April of the same year. The architects were Pullan & Ronchetti of Harrogate, the builders Webster & Cannon of Aylesbury. The church was built to seat 300, and the cost was £4,368.

In a reordering of 1976 the altar was moved into the nave, being placed on the south side, with the seating arranged around it. A new altar, lectern, paschal candle, Stations of the Cross etc were designed and made by parishioners, with two carved wooden statues of Our Lady and St Joseph by Sue Benenson added later. In 1983 the church roof was damaged by fire. The building was repaired and reordered under the direction of the architect George Mathers, and reopened in December 1983. The most notable feature of the reordering was a new engraved glass screen in the chancel arch.

Description

The Buildings of England describes the church as ‘brick, Gothic, small and insignificant’. It is a small Gothic Revival church, conservative for its date, built of wire-cut Fletton bricks with stone/reconstituted stone dressings under a tile roof. The west front is set back from the High Street and has a three-light Decorated window in the gable and a canted porch below, also gabled, with a built in projecting brick cross over the arched entrance, which contains modern doors. The northern flank elevation consists of six bays, each separated by a stepped buttress, with a short single-light window in the western bay and two-light windows with cusped tracery in the remaining bays. The southern elevation is built up against the 1892 presbytery. At the east end is a lower canted chancel, five-sided, with stepped buttresses at the angles and windows set into the diagonal bays. The wider central bay is blind, with a central buttress.

A lobby under a western gallery leans into the main space, consisting of an aisleless nave, with a short eastern chancel, separated from the nave by a moulded chancel arch. The internal walls are of painted brick, with an open timber roof of tie-beams with king posts, queen struts and purlins. Only the north side of the nave is lit; the south wall abuts the presbytery and is therefore windowless. The altar is placed on the south side of the nave, and the original 1937 benches arranged around this. The chancel arch was been enclosed with glass to form a separate Blessed Sacrament chapel, with engraved designs on the glass by Bryant Fedden of Cheltenham (1983). At low level by the chancel arch are carved timber statues of Our Lady and St Joseph, by Sue Benenson. In the chancel are two stained glass windows, the Virgin and Child (in memory of Adelaide Oldham) and St Joseph (Oldham family).

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The church was built to serve the large post-war Southcourt estate, south of Aylesbury. The parish hall was opened first, in June 1963, when it doubled up as a Mass centre. Work began on the church in January 1967, and by 1 October the building was in use. The architect was M. J. Plester (assistant in  charge B. L. Westbury) and the contractors were Crendon Industrial Buildings Ltd of Long Crendon. Much of the work was done using voluntary labour.

Description

The building is of concrete portal frame construction, clad in randomly coursed reconstituted stone or concrete blocks. It has a shallow-pitched roof and recessed bays with tall narrow windows and blue panels below. There is a flat hood over the entrance. The building widens at the east end, with splayed rear-lit bays, recalling Spence at Coventry Cathedral. The external wall of the sanctuary is braced by clasping steel buttresses.

The interior has not been inspected; a photograph above is from the Catholic Building Review (1967). Two older stained glass windows are set into the wall over the sanctuary; their provenance has not been established.

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An influx of Belgian refugees at the beginning of the First World War led to the establishment of a Mass centre in Beaconsfield, in a large assembly room belonging to the Railway Hotel, which was provided by the proprietors Mr and Mrs Borlase. On the repatriation of the refugees it was found that there were sufficient Catholics in the district to make it worthwhile continuing the centre.

The writer G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), who had already lived in Beaconsfield for many years, became a Catholic in July 1922 and was received into the Church in the hotel hall.  He took an active part in parish life and even offered a site for a new church, which was not taken up. With the steady increase in the size and population of Beaconsfield there was clearly a need for a permanent church and eventually in 1926 a site was purchased in Warwick Road and a small church built to the designs of A.S.G. Butler (probably best-known as the author of a major biography of his fellow-architect architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, and the architect of several Catholic churches, including Sacred Heart, Henley, qv).

At first the parish was served from High Wycombe. The first parish priest at Beaconsfield was Mgr Smith, who was appointed in 1931, and a new presbytery was built at that time. In 1934 a parish hall was built and named the Borlase Hall after the early benefactors of the parish. This building was later supplemented by a second and larger hall.

Chesterton died in 1936 and his wife in 1938. They are buried in the local cemetery, where a crucifix headstone over the grave was made by Eric Gill. Their house, Top Meadow in Grove Road, Beaconsfield was left by will for Catholic purposes (it is now privately owned). Mgr Smith decided to complete the ‘west’ end of the church as a memorial to his famous parishioner and a design was commissioned in 1939 from Adrian Gilbert Scott. It comprises a large square tower housing a choir loft, a baptistery and a chapel to the English Martyrs in the form of a cell in the Tower of London,  with  a portcullis  at  the entrance. Building  work was  interrupted  by the Second World War and the new addition was not consecrated until 1947. In recent years a porch and narthex have been added to the ‘west’ side of the tower to provide additional facilities.

Gill’s headstone to Chesterton was removed from the cemetery on account of deterioration and is now set into the outside wall of St Teresa’s church; a new stone loosely based on Gill’s design is now at the cemetery.

Description

The church is faced with red brick with stone detailing and tiled roof-coverings. The earliest part of the building designed by A.S.G. Butler is in the Gothic style and comprises a nave and sanctuary under a continuous pitched roof, with north and south aisles. On the east end wall is a decorative stone niche with a figure of St Teresa, set into the roof of a projecting cross-passage beneath the east window. The addition by A. G. Scott is a massive square tower rising only a short distance above the roof-ridge of the older building, with flat-topped projections on the north and south sides, a gabled projection, like a continuation of the nave, on the west side and a squat timber bell-stage with timber louvres and a pyramidal tiled roof.

The unassuming interior of the original church has four-bay nave arcades of plain round-headed arches with small straight-headed windows in a low clerestory above. The aisles have single small round-headed windows. Clustered stone shafts against the piers of the arcade support the bases of the trusses of a false hammerbeam timber roof. A plainly-moulded pointed arch opens to the short sanctuary. The nave has a parquet floor and benches of African hardwood which replaced the original chairs in 1959. Fittings include a large stone pulpit, presumably designed by Butler, and stained glass of the 1930s in the east window and elsewhere by Edward Nuttgens, an associate of Eric Gill in his workshop at Piggotts.

The tower space is much larger in scale and treated like a crossing, with a flat ornamented ceiling and tall bold plain-plastered arches on all four sides. The east arch opens to the nave, the west arch shelters a choir loft, under the south arch is a wide straight-headed doorway with a moulded surround, which leads to a projecting porch and was clearly intended to be the principal entrance to the building next to the baptistery.  The area outside the porch is now the principal entrance to a large public car park and the door is not in use. Under the north arch is the chapel of the English Martyrs, with a low round-headed arch with a portcullis leading to a small chapel with a Chesterton memorial altar triptych painted by Geoffrey Webb (1939).

The narthex is a flat roofed single-storey addition faced in red brick with broad stone bands; in the centre is a tall glazed timber porch with a pitched roof whose outer end is supported on brick piers. This is now the principal entrance to the church.

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The Kingsbrook area of Bedford, south of the Ouse, was mainly developed in the twentieth century. By 1950 there was a Mass centre at Faldo Road, Bedford, served from St Joseph’s. There was also a chapel at Cardington, served by the RAF chaplain, who in his later years lived in Harrowden Lane, Cardington. The parish hall was opened in 1953, and was originally part of a larger complex used as a school. The foundation stone of the present church, built from designs by Sebastian Comper, was laid by Bishop Parker, and the church was opened in June 1960. The original design included a square tower and transepts east of the nave (illustrated in the Catholic Building Review, 1959) and in 1960 the architect wrote in the CBR ‘the apsidal wall behind the high altar is only temporary’. The contract sum for the nave and ‘temporary’ apse (which remains to this day) was £24,000. The church was designed to seat 380, and had a warmed floor.

Description

A medium-sized brick church in simplified Romanesque style, by J. S. Comper, 1959-60. The grey-brown bricks, doubtlessly locally sourced from the London Brick Company, are laid in Flemish bond. Stone or reconstituted stone dressings, pantile roof. The church consists of a nave without tower or aisles, sanctuary and attached lower sacristy. The main west front has a central recessed porch with triple arch, with a large circular wheel window over; in these respects the design echoes that for Comper’s earlier church of St Gregory, Northampton (1954). The entrance is flanked by stepped buttresses, which are repeated at the corners. A small bell hangs in the gabled bellcote at its apex, surmounted by a cross. On the flank elevations, the five bays of the nave are separated by stepped buttresses, with paired round-arched window openings in each bay. The steep pantiled roof has a flat section at the top. At the east end, the apse (intended as temporary) has one round-arched window on each side and a solid brick canted end. Its roof appears to be covered with felt, and is largely concealed by a plain high parapet. Giving off the north side of the church is a lower single storey flat-roofed projection housing the sacristy, meeting room and WCs.

The entrance porch has a brick patterned floor finish. One enters the church beneath a western gallery, with stairs to the south and a small chapel/crèche (originally the baptistery) to the north. The nave consists of a single volume, its five bays marked by transverse brick arches with paired Romanesque arches with a central column in the centre of each arch. Between the transverse arches are the exposed rafters and purlins of the roof, painted grey, with white plaster interstices. The interior walls are faced with a paler ‘dapple grey’ brick rather than the pink multistocks used externally (the architect would have preferred  limewash, CBR 1960, 150). There are paired round-arched windows to each bay of the nave, with distinctive circular ‘bottle’ leading and semi-opaque glazing. The gallery at the west end has a balustraded front. At the east end, a round chancel arch separates the nave from the sanctuary. To the left a door leads into the sacristy area, and to the right there is an outside door. The sanctuary has a painted timber rafter roof following the form of the canted east end, and a plain brick east wall, against which is placed a cross with a robed and crowned Christ. Above this the original canopy hangs over the site of the former high altar, its underside painted with a representation of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, the sanctuary has been reordered, with a modern stone-carved suite of forward altar, ambo, lectern, presidential chair and font.

There are plain benches in the nave, and standard Stations of the Cross. Stained and coloured glass introduced since the time of the building includes glass in shades of blue in the circular west window, with a central text in memory of Fr Glen, parish priest (1997) and stained glass representations of St Margaret Mary and the Sacred Heart in the former baptistery (now used as a crèche).

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The village of Goldington grew up along the old Bedford to Cambridge road. The parish was merged with Bedford in 1934 and the area was greatly expanded in the post-war years. The demand for labour in the Bedford brickyards led to large scale immigration from Poland, Ukraine, and in particular southern Italy (the brick companies set up recruitment offices in  Naples). In 1955, 92% of male Italian migrants arrived on brickwork contracts, and of the 783 who arrived that year, 468 stayed.

The church of Holy Cross was opened by Bishop Parker on 24 November 1957, and was built to serve the Putnoe estate and the Goldington and Wendover Drive areas. The architect was Gerald King of Max Lock & Partners (Bedford and London), and the contractors Lindum (Lincoln) Ltd. It was built to accommodate 150 people, at a cost of £5,257 10s 4d. The church was put in the charge of the Scalabrini Fathers, an Italian order. It occupies a large site, and the original intention was that the church should in due course become the parish hall and a larger church built alongside. However, the building has remained a church and was later enlarged by the addition of aisles (at the time of the erection of the parish in 1966). A dual-purpose presbytery and hall was built alongside the church, now demolished. The Scalabrini Fathers left Goldington in 1972, after which the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (the Picpus Fathers) served the parish until 2003. Since then it has been served by its first diocesan priest, based in Brickhill. A Pastoral Centre was recently built alongside the church (opened in 2007).

Description

The church is orientated north-south, but this description follows conventional liturgical orientation, i.e. as if the altar faced east.

The church has a plain exterior, clad in brick with a glazed gable end over the main entrance. The most notable quality of the exterior is the unusual roof form, somewhat reminiscent of a Nissen hut, but pointed, and clad with zinc or similar. There is a projecting flat hood over the entrance (replacing a central brick porch), upon which is placed a tall and slender metal tripod surmounted by a cross. At the east end, there is a short projecting square ended chancel, side-lit and with a plain east wall. The aisles are later (1966), flat roofed and with replacement uPVC windows.

The interior is of some character and charm, the most surprising element being the laminated timber trusses that mark the division of the bays of the nave, rising to a pointed arch in the middle. At the west end there is a porch/gallery, with a metal screen front incorporating crosses, of a vaguely Festival of Britain character. At the east end there is a narrower, side-lit sanctuary. There are no furnishings of particular interest.

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Brickhill was developed as a part of the northern expansion of Bedford, with most development taking place from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. The church of St Philip and St James was built mainly on the initiative of Canon Antony Hulme of Bedford, from designs by Burles, Newton & Partners. The builder was Thomas Donnelly (a former mayor of Bedford). The church was designed to seat about 430 and opened in September 1967. At first the church was served from The Holy Child and St Joseph in Bedford Road, but in 1970 it became a separate parish. A house opposite the church on Severn Way was acquired to serve as a presbytery. In 1985 alterations were made to the liturgical west end, by the insertion of upper rooms housing offices, children’s room etc (architects Greenhalgh & Williams of Dunstable).

Description

The construction is of fair loadbearing Fletton brick and lattice steel trusses over the main space and timber joists over the lower roofs. Its plan reflects the needs of the new liturgy and the need for economy. It is almost square on plain, with continuous high-level  clerestory  glazing within a deep boarded fascia. On the south side alongside the entrance is a single-height projecting baptistery, with a curved east wall. There is a flat-roofed single-storey sacristy giving off the north side.

The main worship area is a single space, faced in bare brick, with a zig-zag timber boarded roof of Parana pine running north-south, its form reflected in the pointed clerestory windows. The sanctuary is raised on a dais of two steps, containing a granite altar, tabernacle pedestal and lectern. The altar is of Irish granite and came from the former chapel built by the Sisters of the Holy Ghost at nearby Clapham. Alongside the dais to the right, the statue of Our Lady was brought to the church in 1986, having previously been left in a cellar at the Cathedral. The Catholic Building Review (1967) mentions a stained glass window in the sanctuary by George Faczynski of Liverpool in memory of Canon Hulme’s brother, not seen by the writer. The seating consists of benches, designed by the architects. The baptistery gives off the main space to the right, and contains the font, a large stained glass window by a local schoolgirl and other items.

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Fr John Priestley Warmoll arrived in Bedford on Christmas Eve in 1863 and established a mission at 48 Offa Street (now 60 Tavistock Street). A site for a permanent church in Midland Road was acquired in 1865. A dual-purpose school/ chapel and presbytery were built soon afterwards, from designs by Gilbert Blount. The first Mass in the new chapel was on 31 March 1867, and on 6 May in the same year Fr Warmoll started a day school in his dining room.

The new church of the Holy Child, later known as St Joseph and the Holy Child or more commonly St Joseph’s, was opened on 30 April 1874. The architect again was Gilbert Blount. At this time, the church consisted only of the chancel and the three eastern bays of the nave and aisles. The building was described in Kelly’s Directory: Bedfordshire in 1898 as follows:

‘The Catholic church, in Midland and Brereton roads, and dedicated to The Holy Child and St Joseph, is a lofty building of stone in the Early Decorated style, consisting of chancel, clerestoried nave and aisles: provision has been made for extending one end of the church, and when complete it will have a fine tower with broach spire: the altar, erected in 1864, by subscriptions collected by the children of the congregation, is of Bath stone, with the figures, in canopied niches, of King David, St Gregory the Great, St Andrew and St Nicholas: over the high altar is a stained window, also the gift  of children, and exhibiting incidents in the life of Our Lord: in 1887 a bede altar (sic) of Bath stone and marbles was erected from designs by Mr. A. E. Purdie, and is adorned with figures of Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin and various saints: in 1864 a fine stained window was erected in the chapel as a memorial: both these additions were the gift of a member of the congregation: there are 250 sittings: the Rev. Robert O. Middleton is priest in charge: attached to the church is a presbytery’.

A school in Priory Street, designed  by A. E. Purdie (an assistant to Blount), was opened in 1877, and in the same year Purdie prepared plans for the completion. A signed ground plan and elevation in the Bedfordshire archives dated 13 October 1877 shows the additional three bays to the nave and aisles, a new chapel and confessional beyond the ‘north’ aisle, and a baptistery, organ gallery, and tower with a 146 ft spire on the ‘west’ or main street elevation. However, this work was delayed by some years, only being completed in 1911 (minus the spire). Improvements to the presbytery were carried out at the same time. Papers in the Bedfordshire archives indicate that the work was carried out by Samuel Foster Ltd of Kempston, between January and December 1911.

In 1986-7 there was a major scheme of alteration and adaptation, carried out under the direction of Anthony New FRIBA, involving the reordering of the sanctuary, new engraved glass doors and partitions at the west end of the church, and a new entrance and porch to Brereton Road. At the time of the dismantling of the high altar a name book was found recording the names of those people (mainly children) who had contributed to the cost of the high altar and sanctuary furnishings. The book was conserved and reset in the new forward altar (which was adapted from the former high altar), but a copy was made and is lodged in the Bedfordshire and Luton archives.

Description

The church is orientated north-south, but this description follows conventional liturgical orientation, i.e. as if the altar faced east.

Large church in Decorated Gothic style, faced in rock-faced course stonework and with a banded tile roof. The eastern part was built in 1874 from designs by Gilbert Blount, and the three western bays completed in 1911 from slightly amended designs by A. E. Purdie, Blount’s assistant. The church consists of a nave and aisles of six bays, a tower at the southwest corner (the intended spire was never built), a chapel off the north aisle, a porch off the south aisle (1986), and an apsidal sanctuary flanked by chapels on either side.

The front elevation dates from 1911. The entrance is at the southwest corner, via the tower, while the west wall of the nave is dominated by a large four-light window with Decorated tracery. Below this are three smaller quatrefoil windows under hoodmoulds. There is a further Dec window to the west wall of the north aisle and narrow trefoil-headed lancets to the former baptistery beyond. The tower is of three stages, with stepped buttresses at the angles. In the centre stage over the main entrance is a carved figure of St Joseph carrying the Holy Child, under an elaborate Gothic canopy. There are narrow lancet windows to the upper belfry stage, and the tower is now capped by a simple shallow pyramidal roof. The south elevation faces onto a side street; there are paired lancet windows to the aisle and shorter triple lancets to the clerestory. Over these is a banded tile roof, with cresting on the main ridge. Purdie’s work joins onto the original church quite seamlessly, the only visible indication of the 27-year hiatus being the different shading in the colour of the roof tiles. A stone porch gives off the south aisle, a respectful addition of 1986, with a more recent ramped approach to the entrance on its eastern side elevation. The east end of the south aisle joins onto a two-storey stone addition to the earlier brick presbytery. The north elevation of the church is hemmed in by neighbouring buildings and has not been externally inspected. The apsidal sanctuary has a slightly lower roof ridge than that of the nave; stone gables rise up on each side, each containing a high window with Decorated tracery.

Inside, the nave arcade is of six bays, with moulded and chamfered arcading rising from circular columns on octagonal bases. The open timber roof of the nave has principals rising from corbels, and arch-braced collars, while the aisles have simpler lean-to roofs of principles and rafters. The sanctuary and side chapels are rib vaulted, with polychrome decoration. At the west end of the nave is a stone-built gallery with Gothic arcaded panels on the front; its underside was glazed in as part of the 1986 reordering to form a chapel, incorporating etched glass designs designed by the architect Anthony New and made by Alfred Fisher of Chapel Studio.

In 1968 Pevsner wrote ‘there is nothing to recommend in the interior’. However, there are many notable features, not least the extensive use of richly carved stone detail. This includes carved corbels and capitals with marble shafts around the sanctuary, and in the columns at the entrance to the side chapels, and in the three altars. The high altar was designed by Blount (drawings deposited at the University of Philadelphia) and has figures of saints under elaborate Gothic canopies, and a panelled front. Its mensa has been cut down and reused in the forward altar of 1986, and a pair of ceramic panels formerly incorporated in the high altar has been reset on the wall either side of the sanctuary apse. The front of the forward altar incorporates parts of the former marble and alabaster communion rail, removed in 1986. There are similarly richly-carved altars in the vaulted south (Lady) and north (Sacred Heart) chapels, at least one of them by Purdie (1887). According to an inscription on its south wall, the Lady Chapel altar was given in memory of Edward de Verdun Corcoran, who died in 1894. Over the inscription is a large mural painting of Our Lady and the Christ Child enthroned. The octagonal stone font, with marble columns in the base was moved from the baptistery to the sanctuary area in 1986, when a new wooden cover for it was designed by Anthony New (the former baptistery was made into a reconciliation room). At the same time the former pulpit was cut down and made into an ambo. Most of the internal stonework had been painted at some point, but this was removed during the 1986 restoration, unfortunately at first by an inappropriate method, resulting in some loss of detail (most notably in the altar of the Lady chapel).

Other features of note:

• Original stained glass in the east window (1876, by Campbell & Smith);
• A good First World War memorial window at the west end of the church depicting the Coronation of the Virgin, c.1919, by Jones & Willis;
• Further stained glass of the first two decades of the twentieth century in the apse and aisles, by Jones & Willis and Hardman;
• Moveable pine benches, early or original, with round shouldered ends in the manner of William Butterfield;
• A small wall monument to Fr Warmoll towards the west end of the south aisle;
• Pendant lights in the nave from the 1986 restoration, said to be based on a design by Sir Ninian Comper;
• Pipe organ in the gallery made by Robert Shaftoe of Pavenham.

The ceramic tile floor of the nave dates from 1986, and more recently the chancel has been similarly tiled. The effect is not terribly sympathetic.

The presbytery is attached to the east end of the south aisle. The original part was designed by Blount and is an attractive red brick Gothic design with blue brick detail, stone window surrounds, very much in the Pugin-Butterfield mould. The similarly detailed school building (later the Guildroom) is attached to the rear.

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