Presbytery and cloister to the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady and St Edmund

Summary

Presbytery and cloister passage leading to the Roman Catholic Church Church of Our Lady and St Edmund, Abingdon. Built in 1857 to the designs of William Wardell.

Reasons for Designation

The Presbytery and cloister passage to the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady and St Edmund, Abingdon is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* the building is a good example of the influence of AWN Pugin’s form of Gothic revivalism on the generation of architects that succeeded him. It creates an expression of an idealised community made manifest in its architectural form;
* the quality of the stone carving on the exterior;
* the building survives with little alteration to its original fabric or plan and with many of the original fittings in situ.

Historic interest:

* as a work by the notable architect William Wardell;
* as the product of the patronage of an influential Catholic landowner.

Group value:

* as part of a group of near contemporary Roman Catholic buildings built to a unified design by a single patron. The Church of Our Lady and St Edmund, the Presbytery, the cloister-corridor that joins them and the former schoolroom to the north-east which is now the church hall all combine to have group value.

History

The Second Catholic Relief Act of 1791 permitted the first new generation of Catholic places of worship to be built in England and Wales since the Reformation. They were forbidden to feature bells or steeples and were typically small, classically or domestically detailed, and were often hidden or set back from public view. The 1829 Act of Emancipation removed most remaining inequalities from Catholic worship and was accompanied by a growing architectural confidence. By the 1840s AWN Pugin’s vision of the Gothic revival as a recovery of England’s Catholic medieval inheritance fuelled stylistic debate and inspired new design for both Catholics and wider society. In 1850 Pope Pius X ‘restored’ the role of bishops, cathedrals and dioceses in England, inviting more elaborate architectural projects.

The Church of Our Lady and St Edmund, Abingdon and associated buildings were erected by a local landowner, Sir George Bowyer Bart who lived at Radley House (now Radley College). He was an expert on jurisprudence and constitutional matters and a significant figure in ecclesiastical politics in the mid C19. He had converted to Catholicism in 1850 and inherited his baronetcy in 1860. He was an influential supporter of Cardinal Wiseman but fell out with Manning. Bowyer’ patronage at Abingdon extended to several phases of building. The eastern end of the church, the cloister passage and the presbytery were all part of the first phase which was completed in 1857. His architect, William Wardell, had been a protégé of AWN Pugin. Wardell left in this same year for Australia, where he went on to design the cathedrals in both Melbourne and Sydney. The western end of the church was completed to a revised design by George Goldie in 1865.

Details

Presbytery and cloister passage leading to the Church of Our Lady and St Edmund, Abingdon. Built in 1857 to the designs of William Wardell.

MATERIALS and PLAN: rubble-faced Marcham stone, brought to course with ashlar dressings and a tiled roof. The presbytery is two storeyed and the cloister passage is single storeyed, both having pitched roofs.

PRESBYTERY EXTERIOR: the building has a projecting string course to the ground floor at mid-storey height. The south, entrance front has three bays with a central door with a rectangular, ashlar surround. The plank door has a pointed arch and there are panels of foliage to the spandrels and a rectangular fanlight above which in turn is surmounted by a square ashlar stone carved with a shield bearing the arms of Bowyer. To the left of this are two lancets with cusped heads in rectangular frames placed at either side of an offset buttress that supports a first-floor oriel window which has a richly moulded base and hipped roof with cusped lights to the centre and the canted sides. At the right of centre is a ground-floor bay window with canted sides which has three central lights and a hipped roof. Above this is a three-light casement window.

The western front has two gabled bays, that at right with a projecting chimney with offsets and a carved shield showing a crowned ‘M’. To its left are narrow casements. The two bays are divided by a buttress with offsets and the left bay has an angled bay, similar to that on the south front, above which is a three-light casement window.

The eastern front has projecting stacks at right and left and mullioned and transomed windows of two and three lights to both floors with gablets above.

The rear has a projecting gabled wing at left and outshuts to the ground floor with a stack at right.

PRESBYTERY INTERIOR: the entrance hall has a cross-braced original front door and the staircase has chamfered newels and stick balusters. Ground floor rooms have moulded arches to the window embrasures and fireplaces are of stone which has been painted but have brattished moulding to the tops and roundels at either side of the arched hearth openings. Fire surrounds are plainer at first-floor level and one has been replaced in the C20 with a hard wood frame.

PASSAGE EXTERIOR: the cloister passage projects from the north-west corner of the presbytery and runs in a straight line to the west and then connects with a parish hall which forms part of the body of the church. Its north and south face are similar in having a series of six bays of two-light windows with pointed heads and ashlar surrounds divided by angled buttresses.

PASSAGE INTERIOR: the floor has alternating terracotta and black tiles laid diagonally. The roof has a series of tie beams connecting the common rafters. Window reveals have ashlar surrounds and exposed quoins.

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Bradley, S, Tyack, G, The Buildings of England: Berkshire (2010), 99-100

Websites
Architectural History Practice, Taking Stock Report on Portsmouth Diocese, accessed 25/10/2022 from https://taking-stock.org.uk/building/abingdon-our-lady-and-st-edmund/

End of official list entry