Catholic practice virtually disappeared in the Portsmouth area after the Reformation, and until 1791 those few Catholics who remained were served by the chaplains attached to the households of old Catholic families. Catholics in Portsea however were served by missions established in Brockhampton (Havant) in 1711 and Gosport in about 1750.

In 1792 a new chapel was opened at Unicorn Row, Portsea, with the agreement of John Marsland, a Gosport priest. Within four years a second chapel was established in Prince George Street; Bishop Douglass in his report to Rome of June 1796 states that ‘a new chapel was built at Portsea a few months ago’. So as not to attract undue attention, this was built at the back of a pair of houses (nos 22-26) with a central passage from the street for access.

After the French Revolution, many French and other priests sought refuge in the Portsmouth area, and these were to play an important role in the development of the Church in the area.

The Prince George Street chapel was enlarged and a school built adjoining it between 1848 and 1853.

On 9 December 188o the foundation stone of the present, larger church was laid by Bishop Danell of Southwark. New schools had already been opened here earlier that year, the land having been acquired from the War Office by Mgr Vertue (then Military Chaplain at Portsmouth). The Duke of Norfolk gave £4,000 towards the cost of the new church. The architect, appointed after a competition, was John Crawley of Bloomsbury. Crawley had already been responsible for Catholic churches at Havant and elsewhere in the then Southwark diocese. The contractors were Patman and Fotheringham of Theobald’s Road, London. Crawley died in 1881 and was succeeded by his partner Stanislaus Hansom, son of Joseph, who finished the transepts and side chapels to Crawley’s basic plan.

The Diocese of Southwark was divided and the new Diocese of Portsmouth created on 19 May 1882, and Crawley’s church became the cathedral. Mgr Vertue was appointed Bishop and was consecrated in London on 25 July 1882 by Cardinal Manning. The Bishop’s House was built in 1884 and the Aula Maxima followed in 1885.

The incomplete cathedral (five bays of the nave) was consecrated on 29 March 1887. Hansom’s chancel and transepts were completed in 1893, following additional acquisition of land from the Corporation. Bishop Vertue died in 1900 and his successor Bishop John Cahill added the narthex, porch and turrets at the west end, to the designs of Canon A. J. C. Scoles (in lieu of the 200 ft tower and spire originally proposed). Finally, St Patrick’s chapel was added in 1924 to the designs of W.C. Mangan.

On 10 January 1941 the Cathedral and Bishop’s House were extensively damaged by bombing. Rebuilding and restoration followed in 1946-50 under the direction of G. Raymond of Scoles and Raymond. The Aula Maxima escaped major damage.

In 1963 the north transept window was restored and new glass commissioned.

The sanctuary has undergone several reorderings, the first as early as 1906, when the original altar baldacchino were brought forward of the wrought-iron screen in the chancel. In 1971 a more radical reordering of the chancel to accommodate a new liturgical was undertaken for Bishop Worlock by Austin Winkley (contractors John Lay and Co), involving the demolition of the original baldacchino and the removal of the screen and altar rails. A new Portland stone forward altar with ceramic figures by Fritz Stellar was consecrated on 1 July of that year. Other features of the reordering included a 12 ft diameter corona over the altar, a fireclay font with flowing water and a bronze cross depicting the Risen Christ.

In 1981-2 (in advance of the centenary) further redecoration and reordering took place under the direction of John Wingfield, architect. The old school was converted to a parish centre with curial offices, and Bishop’s House was extended. In 1987 (in advance of the centenary of the church’s consecration) the confessionals were reordered, and access and facilities for disabled people provided. There has recently (2001) been a further and major remodelling and redecoration by Kanavan and Wingfield for Bishop Hollis, involving the remodelling of Winkley’s altar in historical form and the removal of the remaining features of that re-ordering. Full wheelchair access at the west end has been provided.

The 2001 reordering of the sanctuary involved the embellishment of the 1971 altar and the introduction of a new ambo, both with attached columns and richly polychromatic painted decoration. The Blessed Sacrament has been relocated to the Chapel of the Last Supper (to the south of the sanctuary), and the apse converted to the Chapel of the Word. Ceramic tiles have replaced carpet in the aisles and wood block flooring has been laid in the sanctuary.

Description

See list description, below. This offers a fairly detailed architectural account but scarcely mentions the furnishings, which are of high quality, and predates the recent reordering and redecoration.

While not especially commending the exterior, the Buildings of England notes ‘inside, immediately, an impression of moderate grandeur; this does feel like a Cathedral (more than the Anglican Cathedral does), albeit a modest one, thanks very largely to the exquisite proportions of the nave and the width of the aisles’

The 2001 reordering of the sanctuary involved the embellishment of the 1971 altar and the introduction of a new ambo, both with attached columns and richly polychromatic painted decoration. The Blessed Sacrament has been relocated to the Chapel of the Last Supper (to the south of the sanctuary), and the apse converted to the Chapel of the Word.  Ceramic tiles have replaced carpet in the aisles and wood block flooring has been laid in the sanctuary.

Internal features of note include:

• The carved and painted Stations of the Cross, erected in 1912 as a memorial to Bishop Cahill
• The marble altar, wall painting and richly painted coffered ceiling of the Lady Chapel (north of the sanctuary)
• The Chapel of the Last Supper, painted by Westlake in 1906
• The Chapel of St Patrick, 1924 and incorporating windows by Westlake, 1907
• Extensive collection of stained glass by Hardman and Lavers and Westlake (see list below)
• Powerful stained glass in the north transept window, commemorating the Second Vatican Council and (later) the centenary of the diocese.

List description

II

Roman Catholic cathedral. 1877-81 by J Crawley; 1881-96 by J Hansom; 1906 by Canon Alexander Scoles; restored following bomb damage 1945-50; re-ordered 1971. Red brick in Flemish bond with Portland stone dressings; plain tile roof. Decorated style. PLAN: 6-bay nave with clerestory; 6-bay aisles, western bays canted, north aisle with apsidal chapel (1925) new baptistry; west portal and 2 bell turrets (1906); crossing with transepts (1886); chancel with apse, north and south chapels, and south porch (1893). EXTERIOR: offset plinth; strings; eaves bands; gableted buttresses with offsets rising into gableted and crocketed finials; traceried windows, mostly of 2-lights with 3-light windows to clerestory and some spherical triangle windows, all having hoodmoulds and sill strings (tracery of all but south transept window restored 1945-50); board doors with decorative iron hinges in pointed-arched surrounds of several orders with carved tympana; brick parapet to nave, pierced ashlar parapet to chancel, similar blind parapet to baptistry; cross finials. West end: portal has elaborate central door in projecting gableted surround flanked by 3-light windows: a door to each return; nave has tripled 2-light windows, stepped spherical triangle over, flanked by octagonal bell towers with slit windows, louvred belfry openings, spires, and metal finials. South transept has a blind arcade below round window with spherical triangle to gable. 5-light window to north transept. Decorative metal gate in front of chancel south door. INTERIOR: pointed arched arcades and openings having clustered columns with decorative leafy capitals. Vaulted wooden ceilings with moulded ribs, pierced bands, and cusped trusses; plainer roofs to aisles. Good quality fittings include marble altar and reredos to Lady Chapel, tessellated chapel floors and free standing stations of the cross.

Listing NGR: SU6610802158

Sources

Books and journals: Balfour, A, Portsmouth, (1970), 57,58; Hubbuck, R, Portsmouth, (1969-1976), 21; Lloyd, D W , Buildings of Portsmouth and its Environs, (1974), 129,130; Offord, J , Churches Chapels and Places of Worship on Portsea Island, (1989), 102-104; Pevsner, N, Lloyd, D, The Buildings of England: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, (1973), 431,432

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The church is dedicated to Our Lady and St Edmund of Abingdon. Edmund was born in the town in about 1175. He taught for many years in Oxford, and as canon-treasurer of Salisbury Cathedral presided over the opening of the cathedral in 1225. He died at Pontigny, where his body is enshrined above the high altar of the abbey. He was the last Archbishop of Canterbury to be canonised.

A Benedictine abbey had been established at Abingdon in the seventh century. After its surrender in 1538 the abbey church became the Anglican parish church of St Helen. In 1783 the incumbent of St Helen’s was asked by the Bishop of Salisbury how many Catholics there were in the parish and received the answer ‘only one, old and poor’.

The first part of the present church was built at the sole expense of Sir George Bowyer (1811-1883), a writer on constitutional matters and jurisprudence, and a significant figure in mid-nineteenth century ecclesiastical politics. Born at Radley House, Berkshire, he was called to the bar in 1839. In 1850 he converted to Catholicism. At the same time Pope Pius IX re-established the hierarchy, and the hostility aroused by this ‘papal aggression’ led Bowyer to prepare a pamphlet in defence of the pope. From this time on he was a prominent  lay champion in England of the Catholic Church. In the same year Bowyer was appointed Reader in Law at the Middle Temple. From 1852 to 1868 he was a Member of Parliament, representing the Irish borough of Dundalk. He succeeded to the baronetcy in 1860.

Cardinal Wiseman depended greatly on Bowyer’s advice and support, as indeed did the pope, the latter in matters relating to his temporal powers and the movement towards Italian unification. However, Cardinal Manning came to distrust Bowyer, who in turn was ‘loud-mouthed in his denunciation of Manning; and carried his abuse even into the smoking-room of the Reform Club’ (Purcell’s Life of Manning). Bowyer was a Knight Commander of the Order of Pius IX, a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, and a Knight of Justice of the Sovereign Order of St John of Jerusalem (in which costume he appears in the east window at Abingdon). He was a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant of Berkshire. He never married.

In addition to paying for the new church at Abingdon, Bowyer built at his own expense the Catholic chapel of St John of Jerusalem adjoining the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth in Great Ormond Street, London. The architect was George Goldie, who was also employed by Bowyer at Abingdon, but whereas the latter was Gothic, the London chapel was Italianate, with a façade of the Gésu type. When the hospital relocated to St John’s Wood the chapel was rebuilt in the new location (1898-1902 by Edward Goldie).

The first parts of the church at Abingdon to be built were the chancel, south chapel, the covered way or cloister and the presbytery. These were built to the designs of William Wardell, a protégé of Pugin’s. The purpose of the cloister has not been established, but it has been suggested that the original intention was to house a small community of Benedictine monks in the presbytery (anecdotal information from the parish priest). These buildings were completed in 1857 and blessed by Bishop Grant of Southwark.

In the same year Wardell emigrated to Australia, where he was to build two Catholic Cathedrals, at Melbourne and Sydney. The church at Abingdon was completed to the designs of George Goldie, and solemnly opened on 25 October 1865.

In 1858 the cemetery was consecrated by the Bishop of Southwark. The adjoining school in Oxford Road was opened in 1873. Sisters from the Convent of Mercy taught at the school, and a large section of the churchyard is the nuns’ cemetery. The school moved to a new site in Radley Road in 1961.

In 1974 the sanctuary was reordered by Austin Winkley, and the new altar consecrated on 16 November of that year. In 1982 St Edmund’s Lodge, a former school house near the southwest corner of the churchyard, was converted to a parish hall.

Description

The church is Decorated Gothic in style, built of regularly coursed Marcham stone under steeply-pitched tile roofs. Wardell’s east end was built first and shall be described first.

The external wall of the chancel has a large five-light east window with curvilinear tracery and below this a stone carved panel of the Crucifixion. Stepped buttresses at the corners and at the junction of the chancel and south chapel. The south elevation of the south chapel consists of two bays separated by buttresses, with paired trefoil headed lights in each bay with tear-shaped quatrefoils in the arches. Hoodmoulds with carved foliated stops. A lower sacristy gives off the north side of the chancel, and this is connected at right angles to a yet lower covered walkway, or cloister, that connects the church and presbytery. These elements are built in the same materials with similar detailing.

Wardell’s presbytery is a fine piece of Puginian domestic Gothic, an asymmetrical design with a corbelled first floor bay on the left, a ground floor bay on the right, and much decorative and carved stone detail of high quality.

Goldie’s nave is higher than Wardell’s chancel, and built in the same materials. However, the detailing is simpler and there is none of the profusion of carved stonework. The nave and south aisle consist of four bays, with the main entrance to the church in the western bay of the south aisle, slightly projecting. Aisle windows are an enlarged and simplified version of Wardell’s; circular openings with quatrefoils in the clerestorey. Two paired windows to west elevation, separated by stepped buttresses, and stone bellcote above (added in 1884 but shown on the depiction in the church in the east window). There are two north aisles, each two bays shorter than the south aisle (possibly to avoid burials); the inner aisle is now the Lady Chapel, and the outer aisle, four steps up from this, connects to the sacristy and cloister.

The interior is surprisingly intimate in scale and character, given the imposing external bulk of the church. The columns of the nave are plain circular piers with chamfered arches, contrasting with the richly carved capitals, label stops and moulded arcades of the chancel and south chapel. There is a fine east window showing in the centre panel Sir George Bowyer presenting the church to Our Lady and St Edmund of Abingdon, by Hardman & Co. (who worked for Wardell elsewhere, including Sydney Cathedral). Stained glass in the Lady Chapel is by Clayton & Bell. There is evidence of a polychrome decorative scheme in the chancel, but any surviving scheme beneath the east and north walls has been lost by the removal of the plaster in association with the repairs being carried out at the time of the writer’s visit. An original or early stone altar appears to survive in the south chapel.

The church was reordered in the 1970s and at that time a new door was formed leading off the north side of the chancel connecting to an existing porch attached to the sacristy. There is an organ chamber giving off the main arcade on the north chancel wall. In the north aisle is a painted medieval statue of Our Lady from the medieval shrine at Sunningwell.

The parish hall lies to the southwest of the church, and was built by Sir George Bowyer in 1873 as a schoolroom, from designs commissioned from Edwin Dolby, a local architect. It is built of similar materials to the church and consisted originally of one large and one smaller room with Gothic windows in the gable ends facing the street (two and three lancets and plate tracery with inset cusped circular openings). Timber framed porch/entrance to left. The school relocated in 1961, and in 1982 the building was converted to a parish hall, with an extension at the rear (now the main entrance) and in inserted upper floor with rooflights.

In the churchyard there is a Portland stone monument by Eric Gill to the seventh Earl of Abingdon (d.1928), with a high-relief Crucifixion in the headstone.

The church, presbytery and cloister and the parish hall (former schoolhouse) were each separately listed grade II in March 2025:

Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady and St Edmund, Abingdon on Thames – 1483659 | Historic England

Presbytery and cloister to the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady and St Edmund, Abingdon on Thames – 1484430 | Historic England

Former schoolhouse, Abingdon on Thames – 1484424 | Historic England

Gill’s monument to the seventh Earl of Abingdon was listed grade II in August 2025:

Monument to the 7th Earl of Abingdon, Abingdon on Thames – 1484416 | Historic England

Entry amended by AHP 25.08.2025

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In 1872 a site was purchased in Queen’s Road, and St Joseph’s school, plus a school-chapel, opened in November of that year. A tin church was built adjacent to the presbytery in 1883, which was subsequently dismantled and moved to Belle Vue Road, North Town. The foundation stone for the present church was laid in March 1902 and the church was opened in January 1913 by Bishop Cotter.

The architect George Drysdale (1881-1949) studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris and then worked in the offices of Ernest George and Leonard Stokes, before starting his own practice in 1911, shortly after which he made the designs for St Joseph’s. From 1916-19 Drysdale was in Canada, rebuilding the fire-damaged Houses of Parliament in Ottawa. On his return to England he set up partnership with Leonard Stokes until Stokes’ death in 1925. Drysdale was based in Birmingham, and had a predominantly Catholic church building practice, including three in Birmingham and others at Weymouth, South Norwood, Ruislip and Bodmin. He specialised in variations on a basilican and Romanesque theme.

St Joseph’s was reordered in the 1970s, when the original high altar was removed and replaced with a forward altar. The reordered church was consecrated on 22 September 1982 by the Rt Rev. Anthony Emery, Bishop of Portsmouth. Changes since then have included the addition of large wall paintings in the north and south aisles by local artist Robert Senior.

Description

See list description, below. The church is described by Pevsner as being ‘[O]ne of the most impressive churches of its date, brilliantly planned on a triangular site, steeply sloping down to the central belfry and the apse on the E apex.’ The church is brick built with a pantile roof. The brickwork has a polychrome finish, with dark red and narrow banding on the body of the church and grey brick at clerestory level. The design is basilican, with side chapels with half drum roofs at the north and south sides at the west end, a central belfry and an apse at the eastern apex. The principal entrance is from Queen’s Road on the south front. Internally, the nave has four bays with windowless aisles. The polychrome decoration is of brick and glazed tiles, with dark marble columns in the apse. At the west end is a gallery with a pipe organ built by Forster & Andrews in 1881 for a Congregational chapel in Sidcup, rebuilt here in 1981 by Hill & Son & Norman & Beard Ltd (National Pipe Organ Register). The church and presbytery form a harmonious group.

Entry amended by AHP 21.10.2025

List description

II

Roman Catholic 1912/13, by George Drysdale. Wedge-shaped plan, with a rounded (east) end at the junction of Queen’s Road with Edward Street. High flank walls pierced by a doorway on each street (at different levels) with windows above which provide clerestory lighting; a bell-turret is prominent by virtue of the ground falling to the east. Inside, the church is a basilica with an impressive character, richly textured and complete with original furnishings. Externally, everything is in brickwork, with upper levels of dark brindle, and the flank walling in brindle-banded red.

Listing NGR: SU8608450624

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In 1911 the tin church from St Joseph’s was moved and used as a Mass centre. H. Bingham Towner was commissioned to design the new church in 1961. The church was opened in March 1963 by Archbishop King. It cost £28,800 and seats 330.

Description

The church is a brick-built basilica with stone dressings to the windows and entrance door. There are three-light clear glass windows in the four bay aisles, and six three-light clear glass windows in the clerestory. The west front has a large three-light window which illuminates the west gallery. The entrance vestibule has two single light windows in the sides. The interior consists of a nave and two aisles, the latter being single height. Shallow segmental arches spanning between columns with square cushion capitals. The interior is spacious and well-lit, with wooden pews in the nave and chairs in the aisles. The altar is of marble.

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Catholicism in the area, focused on Tichborne House, appears to have enjoyed a little-persecuted existence since the Reformation. Catholics were served by chapels at Tichborne House until the present church of St Gregory the Great was built in 1967-8 from designs by Melhuish Wright & Evans of Wimbledon; the builder was Jenkins & Co. of Southampton. The church was consecrated on 11 July 1975. A parish centre was added in 2004.

Description

The church is faced with light brown bricks laid in stretcher bond. Plain brown tiled roofs. The planning allows a square worship area with a slightly projecting western porch flanked by a sacristy (south) and utility rooms (north). The roof of the main body of the building is raked forward with horizontal timber panelling over the brick walling. Behind this comes a towering central area formed of a tiled pyramid out of which bursts a tall, monopitch lantern whose glazed face, with eight mullioned lights, is aligned west. All this is subsidiary to creating the interior spaces and effects.

The church clearly shows a clear attempt to design the building from the inside out. This is based round a square worship area where the ruling principle is indirect lighting. Four concrete columns are placed within the corners of the square and between them are placed deep reinforced concrete columns which a) support the superstructure and b) conceal metal ‘clerestory’ lights on the outer perimeter walls of the worship area.

The central area rakes up to a square area with a horizontal grid of timbers in its lower parts then, above, a funnel of light formed by the triangular apex of the building (vertical glazed part; monopitch tiled roof). When built the all-over internal timber panelling was entirely stained: the rather overpowering effect has led the parish to apply white painting to the boarding in the lantern during a recent refurbishment.

There is a rather incongruous High Victorian organ signed ‘W. Sweetland, Bath, 1866’ in the northeast corner.

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The first Catholic church in Alton opened in 1911 in Albert Road; it was in a plain gothic style, and seated only 100. In 1938 a larger temporary church was built on the site of the present building in Normandy Street. The foundation stone of the present church was laid on 30 April 1966 by Bishop Worlock and the church was completed later in that year to the designs of Justin Alleyn. The presbytery was completed around 1968.

Justin Alleyn (1908-83) was educated at Ampleforth College and studied at the Liverpool School of Architecture. His practice was based in London and Reigate, and he designed a number of churches of adventurous plan form and design in the early-mid 1960s.

The church was consecrated on 25 June 1982.

Description

The church is in an innovative design being centrally planned, with an altar at the centre. The building is hexagonal, with a central lantern over the altar and sanctuary area and a smaller lantern above the main entrance, which was initially the baptistery. The stepped roof is timber with a metallic sheet covering and natural light enters the church through the lantern and at each step level. The twenty-two lancet windows have vertical abstract stained glass panels set at the angles of the hexagon; according to the parish priest these were designed by Fr Charles Norris of Buckfast Abbey, Devon (made by Hugh Powell?). Fr Hart stated that limited reordering took place in the late twentieth century.

The statue of the Virgin is Italian in marble, dating from 1827, and was a gift from Lord Heathcote. The high altar is of Sicilian marble and Portland stone.

The two storey brick-built presbytery has been designed to form a group with the church.

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The church was built in 1957 to the designs of Richard Hare of Potter & Hare. The nave is on a north-south axis. There is a single-storey entrance lobby at the southern end, a sacristy on the northwest corner and a small side chapel to the northeast. The cost of the church was £25,000, and it seated 200.

The presbytery was built in 1924 and extended to the northwest in the 1980s. The church was extended to the south by approximately four metres in 1989 (contractor Thomas King & Sons of Abbots Ann).

Description

The church is of brick and blockwork cavity construction, rendered internally; it has a shallow roof with aluminium sheeting and the original nave windows have precast concrete surrounds, with hardwood on the 1989 extension. Internally, the wood-lined roof is supported by concrete columns. The nave glass is leaded, and there is are five-light stained glass windows of 1960 at the liturgical east end and south chapel (Crucifixion in the east window and Baptism with coloured glass in the outer panels to south chapel). There is a gallery at the liturgical west end. The church has a marble altar, pulpit and baptismal font.

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The founders of the church were Charles Joseph Stonor and his wife, who had already built a chapel at their house, Llanvair (blessed Nov. 1886). Stonor had come into contact with French Franciscans of the Province of Aquitaine and set about bringing them to Ascot. On 1 May Fr Bernadin Ibald and Fidelis Bouille arrived and took charge of the mission. The foundation stone was laid on 8 May 1888 by Bishop Vertue, who processed from Stonor’s private chapel. Bouille had been at Clevedon church, which Fr (later Canon) A. J. C. Scoles had designed, and this no doubt helps explain their choice of architect. The builders were Goddard & Son and the cost amounted to about £2,500. The Friary was opened on 28 May and the first Mass was said in the unfinished church on Christmas Day. On 4 July 1889 the Bishop consecrated the church and dedicated it to St Francis.

Alexander Joseph Cory Scoles (1844-1920) was one of two architect-priest sons of J. J. Scoles, eminent Gothic Revival architect and receiver of a number of important Catholic commissions, particularly for the Jesuits. He was a Franciscan tertiary and before coming to Portsmouth diocese, was for twenty-three years in the diocese of Clifton, where he designed and built churches at Bridgwater, Trowbridge and Yeovil as well as the Carmelite church and Priory at Wincanton. After falling out with the Bishop of Clifton, Scoles moved to Portsmouth diocese, where St Francis, Ascot was his first church. He went on to build St Swithun, and St Joseph, both in Portsmouth (1901 and 1914 respectively) and also worked on the west end of the Cathedral. His best work was Holy Ghost, Basingstoke.

On 5 June 1901 Ascot technically ceased to be a mission and the boundaries of the parish were finally drawn. There was a reordering by Edward Campling in 1969. The church was looked after by the Franciscans until the closure of the friary, being handed to the Diocese of Portsmouth in 1980.

Description

The church is built of red brick with Bath stone dressings in an Early English style. Concrete tile roof. It has north and south aisles and under their own gables and so presents a triple-gabled façade to the road. The west windows of the aisles have two-light plate tracery windows and the nave three graded lancets. A statues of the Virgin and Child is placed in the apex of the nave gable

The six-bay south elevation has a blind west bay (with a statue of St Francis in a niche) and paired lancets in the remaining bays. The eastern parts of the building comprise the chancel (containing a chapel) with a three-sided apse, Lady Chapel (south), and vestry (north), under a hipped roof. The chancel windows are single lancets but a gable with triple graded triple lancets rises over the western parts of the chancel. The Lady Chapel has a sexfoil circular window in its eastern wall and a pair of lancets on the south. A timber bell-turret sits on the chancel roof ridge.

The interior has five-bay arcades with octagonal piers, moulded capitals and double chamfered arches: there is also a sixth, blind bay. The nave roof is six-sided, those over the aisles four-sided. At the west end of the nave is a timber gallery for the organ. The high windows above the western part of the chancel provide excellent illumination. The chancel has ribbed, timber vaulting and is divided by a stone screen behind which lies a chapel. This has seating (with misericords) round the east end and the altar is placed against the screen which on this side is faced with wood.

The fittings of most interest are seats, panelling and altar in the eastern chapel. The Lady Chapel contains a small south window signed by Mayer & Co. of Munich (n.d.).

Entry amended by AHP 23.12.2020

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At the start of the nineteenth century Woolhampton was the nearest Mass centre for Basingstoke Catholics. In the 1840s there was an influx of Irish labourers building the railway, and Mass was sometimes said in the town. In 1875 John Soper, a worthy of Basingstoke and not a Catholic, made available a site adjoining the cemetery where Holy Ghost church now stands. In December 1877 a small chapel (which survives as the parish hall) was opened, with a schoolroom behind (the school closed in 1900).

Fr A. J. C. Scoles, then in Clifton diocese, was said to have been so impressed by the view of the ruins of the medieval church of the Holy Ghost at Basingstoke, as seen from the railway line, that he determined to build a new church here with the same dedication. On 21 October 1900 Bishop Cahill, who had just become the second Bishop of Portsmouth, wrote in an ad clerum:

“You are aware that for some time past the Mission of Basingstoke has had no resident priest, because the Diocese could no longer afford the heavy expense of his almost entire support. Now a good priest of another Diocese taking pity on the place, and moved by his lifelong desire to raise up shrines in honour of the Holy Ghost, has offered to undertake the Mission of Basingstoke (a town anciently dedicated to the Holy Ghost), and to build a suitable church and presbytery, and, if possible, endow the Mission sufficiently to enable its priest to remain there always. The Very Rev. Canon Scoles, who has already built and endowed two churches in his own Diocese of Clifton (spending some £13,000) – one of them being the very beautiful church of the Holy Ghost at Yeovil – has determined to leave his perfect presbytery at Yeovil, resigning his Rectorship, his Canonry, and his office of Vicar Forane, in order to devote himself to Basingstoke, on which he proposes to spend at least £4,000.”

Scoles came to Basingstoke in 1901 (work was already sufficiently advanced on the presbytery to allow for his occupation) and built the church to his own design as well as at his own expense. The foundation stone was laid in 1902 and the church was consecrated and opened in September 1903. Canon Scoles died in 1920 and is buried outside the east end of the church.

Description

The church is designed in Scoles’s favoured late-thirteenth century style, and occupies a corner site on rising ground to the north of Basingstoke town centre. There is a substantial contemporary presbytery in Gothic style to the south of the church, and an earlier, more modest chapel (now parish hall) to the east.

The list description (below) provides a fairly detailed description of the church. Additional information:

The high altar has a sub-plinth of Languedoc marble, a cornice of polished alabaster supported by four columns of Bois de Jourdan and Serpentine marble. The frontal is Mexican onyx and the altar slab is Sicilian marble. There is an onyx and alabaster tabernacle.

Stained glass: Apart from the reset sixteenth-century glass mentioned in the list description and the later glass in the west windows, the stained glass dates from the early twentieth century and can be stylistically attributed to the firm of Lavers and Westlake. They comprise:

• Four lights of the apse depict the Four Evangelists, 1903-08
• Two-light window in the north chancel depicting St Joseph and St Alexander c1903?
• Two-light window on the south side of the nave commemorating the dead of World War 1, c1919
• Two-light window in the north transept (Lady Chapel), depicting the Visitation, Nativity, Presentation and Christ and the Doctors

The three-light abstract windows at the west end are by Andrew Taylor, and were installed in 1992.

On the west wall of the Lady Chapel is a monument inviting prayers for Canon Scoles, founder of the church (photo above).

The presbytery is attached to the south side of the church. It is a large red brick house with a three storey gabled wing and stone dressings to the Gothic windows and doors.

Lying to the east of the church is the original 1877 chapel (with 1878 datestone in the gable). This is a simple flint structure with stone dressings, by Joseph Tigwell, builder. There is a gabled north elevation facing the road with three trefoil headed windows and a gabled bell-cote.

List description

II

Roman Catholic church. 1902. By and for Canon A.J.C. Scoles. Dressed flint with ashlar dressings; some red brick in stretcher bond; Roman tile roof. 5 bay nave, the eastern bay having northern transept, comprising Lady Chapel, and southern entrance by Presbytery. Apsidal sanctuary (9 windows). Octagonal bell tower on south side, in angle with Presbytery. In High Victorian Gothic style following the Early English style and having offset butresses; 2-light plate-traceried windows with hoodmoulds, single-light windows to apse, and west window of 3 stepped lights with attached columns. West end: entrance has architrave of 3 orders and tympanum with low-relief carving; 3 blind recesses pierced with quatrefoils; gable cross. Lady Chapel: gabled, with statue of Madonna and child in niche over window, gable cross, and pentafoil west and east windows. Bell tower: chamfered plinth; quoined angles; moulded bands; stair lit by single-light windows; louvred lights to bell stage; corbelled eaves band; slate spire with slender cross.

INTERIOR: richly painted and decorated by N.H.J. Westlake, (stations of cross c1930), the paintings restored 1991-92. In the Sanctuary and Lady Chapel polished marble columns support decorative archivolts. Polished stone altars and reredoses and, at east end, tabernacle for cross. Vaulted roof to Sanctuary. Compartmental roof to nave with foliate capitals carrying vaults. Decoratively-carved stone font and pulpit (1928). Decorative brass lanterns. In one of the southern nave windows is inset a piece of early-mid C16 glass, originally from the chapel at Vyne House, Basingstoke. West gallery inserted c1965; pews replaced mid-late 20.

Canon Scoles also designed and built churches at Bridgewater and Yeovil (in his previous diocese of Clifton), and a western extension for Portsmouth Roman Catholic Cathedral (q.v.). This church in Basingstoke is the last and best of his work. On his death in 1920 he was buried next to the Sanctuary. The tombstone commemorates Canon A.J.C. Scoles, d1920, architect and patron of the church; stepped ridged gravestone with roll mouldings, moulded gablets and surmounted by crucifixion; it is situated in the angle of the Lady Chapel and Sanctuary.

Listing NGR: SU6223851421

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It was from Boars Hill that Matthew Arnold was inspired to write of the ‘dreaming spires’ of Oxford, inspiring many to climb the hill, and some to buy plots and build houses. The place was popular with poets. Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited includes ‘advice from a fourth year man…keep clear of Boar’s Hill’.

The church is built from a converted garage in the grounds of Grace Dieu, an Edwardian house belonging to the Newdigate family, which was given to the Dominicans as a rest home. The garage was given to the parish in 1945 and converted into a chapel dedicated to St Thomas More.

In 1960 Grace Dieu passed from the Dominicans to the diocese. The house is now privately owned.

In 1963 the contents of Eric Gill’s chapel at Piggotts, Buckinghamshire, were given to Fr Crozier, the priest serving North Hinksey parish, and some of the furnishings came to Boar’s Hill.

Description

The building is a converted Edwardian garage, roughcast with tapering buttresses at the corners and timber framing/ashlaring under the eaves. The sanctuary is a later addition, presumably dating from 1945. The roof is tiled.

The interior is plain, and notable above all for the furnishings (plain stone altar and tabernacle) from Eric Gill’s chapel at Piggotts, brought here in 1963. The painted wooden rood figures on the east wall are by Gabriel Pippet, and were placed in the chapel for the opening in 1945. Pippet worked with Mgr Hugh Benson, whose artistic community at Little Gidding, Cambridgeshire was similar in many respects to Gill’s at Ditchling and Piggotts. His work can also be found at St Mary’s, Woolhampton (Douai Abbey) and St Thomas More, Boscombe (Bournemouth).

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