Church of Our Lady Immaculate and St Edmund King and Martyr With Attached Former Presbytery

Details

STOKE BY NAYLAND

922/0/10060 CHAPEL LANE 16-APR-03 Withermarsh Green Church of Our Lady Immaculate and St. Edmund, King and Martyr, with attached former Presbytery

II

Roman Catholic church and attached former presbytery. For the Mannock family of Gifford's Hall. Church 1827. Gault brick (south flank of red brick); slate roof. Rectangular meeting house plan. EXTERIOR: 2-storey west front. Single-storey central porch with 3 arched openings. Rendered and colourwashed crenellated parapet with stiff-leaf finials to corners. One arched window with 2-light Y tracery glazing to left of porch, corresponding window to right blocked 1991 with a board inscribed with history of the building. 2 trefoiled lancets above, under hoodmoulds, set in blocked openings. 4 2-light Y-tracery windows to north return, under hoodmoulds on label stops and with brick relieving arches. Blocked east window. South return with one blind recessed arch, partly obscured by lean-to extension leading to lean-to vestry at east end: one Y-tracery 2-light window to south and a doorway to east. INTERIOR: elliptical plastered ceiling. West gallery supported on 2 cast-iron columns. Balustrade of wrought and cast iron, of alternating wide and narrow panels with interlace of ogeed and arched verticals rising to double top rail and timber handrail. Gallery stairs: stick balusters with ramped handrail and closed string. Stone holy water stoup with wavy cusping to pointed arch and an apron with 3 panels. Octagonal font with traceried stem and encircled quatrefoils to the bowl. Altar rails of cast and wrought iron on same pattern as gallery balustrade. Sarcophagus altar.

Presbytery, now private house. C17, remodelled 1827. Red brick with gault brick west facade over earlier timber frame; slate and plaintiled roofs. Lobby entrance plan. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and dormer attic; 3-window range. Rendered and painted rusticated quoins. Central 6-panelled door, the upper 2 panels glazed. Reeded timber doorcase and hood, with plaque above inscribed: Gloria/Excelsis/Deo. One unhorned tripartite sash right and left with 2/2:6/6:2/2 glazing, set within rendered and painted raised surrounds under hoods on label stops. 3 6/3 unhorned sashes to first floor with similar surrounds. Central ridge stack. South return with one unhorned tripartite sash to ground floor with 2/2:6/6:2/2 glazing bars and set within rendered and painted raised surround with hoodmould on label stops. One 6/3 unhorned sash to first and attic floors in similar surrounds. 2 flat-headed dormers fitted with 2-light casements with arched tracery heads. 2-storey rear outshut under catslide roof; 3-window range. Central half-glazed door with Y-tracery glazing bars. One C20 2-light casement to left and one 3-light early C19 casement to right with arched tracery heads. 3 similar 2-light first-floor casements. INTERIOR: not inspected. The church is an unusual example of a Catholic church built in the early C19 after the 1790 Second Catholic Relief Act allowed public places of worship. Simple and unobtrusive it hardly reveals its use and the interior is an austere Nonconformist design with west gallery. The Mannock family had long received communicants to secret mass at Gifford's Hall and this church exemplifies the growing tolerance towards Catholics but also their reticence in the construction of new churches. The family no doubt improved one of their existing houses (also of special interest) and attached the church to it, and the group is thus also significant. REFERENCE. Wilson, W.D., Roman Catholic Churches and Chapels in East Anglia, unpbd. report for English Heritage, 1998.

Legacy

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Legacy System number:

490026

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LBS

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