Summary
A Roman Catholic church built in 1826 and parish hall, former school building added in 1879.
Reasons for Designation
The Roman Catholic church of St Mary, Thetford, constructed in 1826 with a later parish hall is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* for the contrast of its reserved external appearance and its elaborate Italianate interior;
* for the use of vernacular building materials, especially knapped flint and gaul brick, which contribute and their contribution to regionally distinct architectural tradition.
Historic interest:
* as the earliest free-standing post-Reformation Catholic place of worship in the Diocese of East Anglia;
* for its ability to illustrate the impact of pre-emancipation civil and religious inequalities on Catholic life and worship.
Group value:
* for the strong visual and functional relationship with the attached Grade II listed presbytery.
History
England’s many medieval churches had been built for a Roman Catholic mode of worship (the Latin rite). Elizabeth I’s 1559 Act of Uniformity rendered them all part of the Church of England and outlawed the Catholic Mass. The following two centuries imposed upon a diminishing minority of Catholic worshippers in England severe civil inequalities, public suspicion and periods of outright persecution. Aside from a small number of private chapels and foreign embassies, there were very few buildings dedicated to Catholic worship.
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. It was not until 1829 that the Act of Emancipation removed most remaining inequalities from Catholic worship.
Medieval Thetford was at times a significant ecclesiastical centre and served the seat of a bishopric until 1096. It was even the site of both a Cluniac monastery and a shrine of Our Lady of Thetford. The almost complete reduction of the Catholic population following the Reformation was therefore a considerable change. Between the C17 and the early C19 Catholic worship relied upon occasional visits from Jesuit priests.
In 1826 George Gardiner, a local banker, and his chaplain, John Holden, issued an appeal to build a Catholic chapel and school. Within the year the present church had been constructed, three years prior to the Act of Emancipation. The architect of the church is not known. In 1829 a presbytery and additional accommodation for a school teacher was added to the liturgical west end of the church. Gardiner died in 1831 and was buried under the high altar.
In 1835 the altarpiece was installed, a copy of The Holy Family resting on the Flight into Egypt by Giovanni Battista Pittoni (the original is now in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge).
In 1879 a new school building was constructed on land to the rear of the church to designs by John Bond Pearce of Norwich, now the parsh hall. Yolande Lyne-Stephens of Lynford Hall was a major donor for the project. Mrs Lyne-Stephens also provided funding for the Church of Our Lady of Consolation and St Stephen at Lynford, and the entire construction of Our Lady and the English Martyrs in Cambridge (both listed at Grade II*)
Early photographs of the interior show a sarcophagus-type altar but no altar rails. Following the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) various alterations were made to the church interior, including the introduction of the forward altar of carved stone, and the creation of a gallery at the liturgical west end.
St Mary's is the oldest free-standing Catholic place of worship in the Diocese of East Anglia that is still in use.
Details
A Roman Catholic church built in 1826 and parish hall, former school building added in 1879.
MATERIALS: the church is built of knapped flint with gault brick dressings and the roofs are covered in Welsh slate.
PLAN: the compass points given in this description are liturgical rather than geographical so that the altar is described as being at the 'east' end of the church. The plan of the church is undifferentiated externally, and internally is a single open volume with a gallery at the west end and a sanctuary at the east end.
EXTERIOR: the church is attached to the presbytery at the liturgical west end and is gabled at the east. It is four bays long and has tall window openings with round arches and rusticated brick surrounds. There is an eaves cornice of dentilated brick.
The liturgical north elevation faces Newtown across a small burial ground. On the left-hand side there is a flint and brick porch with a double doorway and an arched fanlight.
The east gable rises to a small copper-covered cross. The wall is blank with a large former window opening now in-filled with stretcher bond brickwork.
The south elevation has a window in each of the four bays. The left-hand window has been shortened by the creation of a pair of lean-to extensions. Mounted on the wall at the centre of the elevation is a figure of the Virgin and Child. Beneath the window at the right-hand side is a small early C21 porch covering the entrance to the crypt.
INTERIOR: the interior is a single open volume with a gallery at the west end and the sanctuary at the east. There is a deep moulded cornice beneath the coved ceiling which has a large plaster rose at its centre. The pews that form the majority of the seating have simple panelled bench ends with marks indicating the historic presence of doors to each pew. The sanctuary rises three steps up to the height of the altar. There are Corinthian columns and pilasters with entablatures forming an aedicule around the altar and the altarpiece. The front of the altar itself is carved with stags lapping at water that flows from the rock of Calvary, on its other face is a Pelican in her Piety. There is a small confessional with a plain interior attached to the liturgical south side of the sanctuary. The western bay of the church is occupied by a gallery constructed in the 1960s with an organ and raked seating. It is accessed via twin staircases against the west wall which frame a memorial plaque dedicated to the memory of George Gardiner and his family. Attached to the south side of the nave, abutting the confessional, is a small vestry or sacristy with a plain interior.
PARISH HALL EXTERIOR: the parish hall, a former school building, is a free-standing structure located to the rear of the church. It is built of red brick laid in Flemish bond and has a steep pitched roof covered in Welsh slate and ornamental ridge tiles. There are two porches on the (geographic) north side and a C20 extension at the east end. Almost all of the windows are on the south side, with a large window of gothic tracery design in the west gable end. At the apex of the west gable is a Gothic bellcote without a bell.
PARISH HALL INTERIOR: the principal interior space is a large hall with an arch-braced roof structure concealed above the collars. There is matchboard dado panelling all around the interior and a blocked fireplace on the north side. Other original features of interest include four-panelled doors and a quarry tiled floor.
