Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady and St Philip Neri

Summary

Roman Catholic parish church, built in 1877 to designs by Charles Alban Buckler for William Henry John North.

Reasons for Designation

The Church of Our Lady Immaculate and St Philip Neri in Kirtling, built in 1877 to designs by Charles Alban Buckler for William Henry John North, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as an attractive small country church built in the Early English Gothic style, which exhibits architectural quality in its materials and construction;
* for its design by Charles Alban Buckler, who is recognised as one of the most distinguished of the early- to mid-Victorian Catholic architects, a considerable number of whose works are listed, some at high grades.

Group value:
* for the strong historical group the church forms with the neighbouring Kirtling Tower, a C16 tower of great antiquity (listed at Grade I), and the complex scheduled monument including moated platforms, ponds and garden remains, on which Kirtling Tower stands.

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. The 1829 Act of Emancipation removed most remaining inequalities from Catholic worship and was accompanied by a growing architectural confidence. By the 1840s A W N 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 even grander architectural projects.

There was a significant expansion in the numbers of Catholics in England between 1850 (around 700,000), 1911 (around 1.7m) and 1941 (2.7m). This increase was accompanied by the development of a new Catholic parish system in 1908, by the construction of convents, monasteries, schools and social institutions, and by landmark buildings such as Westminster Cathedral (consecrated 1910).

Though the First and Second World Wars had some short-term impacts on the rate of expansion, the boom in schools, new towns, suburbs and housing estates in the 1950s and 60s saw more Catholic churches built in England than at any time since the Reformation. During that period the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) introduced profound reforms to the Catholic church, including architectural changes informed by the Liturgical movement. Key changes include saying the Mass in languages other than Latin, and the reordering of churches to reflect a greater ecumenism and communality of worship.

Kirtling Tower, a brick C16 gatehouse, is a site of considerable antiquity and all that survives of what once was the grandest Tudor mansion in Cambridgeshire. It was built for Edward, 1st Lord North, who rose to be Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations and thereby benefitted from the spoils of the dissolution of the monasteries. The house was reduced in size in 1748 and demolished except for the gatehouse in 1801. It grew again with a large neo-Tudor range built in 1872 to designs by J A Hansom for the Hon. William Henry John North (11th Lord North from 1884); North and his wife Frederica converted to Catholicism in 1867 and this no doubt influenced their choice of a Catholic architect.

In 1871 they built a small temporary church of corrugated iron in the grounds of the Tower; dedicated to Our Lady Immaculate and St Philip Neri, the church was served by priests from the London Oratory and Newmarket. In 1877 the temporary church was replaced by the present one, designed by Charles Alban Buckler (1824-1905), whose clientele included a number of Catholic gentry, both old families and converts. The iron church was transported to Stowmarket, where it served a similar purpose until the building there of the present church of Our Lady. A detached presbytery was built approximately 40 metres south-east of the Kirtling church at the same time or very soon afterwards, probably also to Buckler’s design (not listed).

Son of the antiquarian writer and church restorer John Chessell Buckler (1793-1894), Charles Alban Buckler was a keen student of medieval art and architecture and built many churches in the Gothic style. He converted to the Catholic faith in 1844 and is recognised as one of the most distinguished of the early- to mid-Victorian Catholic architects. He designed a number of Catholic churches in the east and south-east of England, including the Priory Church of St Dominic in Camden, built between 1874 and 1883 (Grade II*), and a considerable number of his churches are listed at Grade II. His secular achievements include the substantial rebuilding of Arundel Castle for the Duke of Norfolk between 1890 and 1903 (listed at Grade I),and the re-fronting of the East Range of the First Quadrangle of Jesus College in Oxford in 1854 (listed at Grade I).

Details

Roman Catholic parish church, built in 1877 to designs by Charles Alban Buckler for William Henry John North.

Materials: the roof has a plain tile covering, and the walls are constructed of flint with limestone dressings. 

Plan: The church is rectangular on plan with an apsidal north end. All compass points in the following description are liturgical rather than geographical, so that the main altar is described as being at the 'east' end of the church (rather than compass north).

Exterior: The small church was built in the Early English Gothic style, with plain tile roofs and flint walls with limestone dressings. On plan it consists of a nave, apsidal sanctuary, north porch and south aisle. A sacristy with a gallery or family pew over projects from the south side of the sanctuary. The west elevation of the nave has three lancet windows with stepped buttresses at the corners, with a small cinquefoil window above and a gabled bellcote housing two bells. The north porch has a two-centred arched entrance, double boarded doors and in the gable a mandorla, prepared for an unrealised carving. At the east end, the apsidal sanctuary is buttressed with four lancet windows (the central bay is blind), while the south aisle has a lancet to the west and high-level trefoil lights to the south.

Interior: Inside, the nave and chancel comprise a single volume, with an arch braced timber roof rising from corbels and ashlars. A three-bay south aisle arcade is supported by circular piers. The floors are of black and red tiles in the nave and aisle, with patterned encaustic tiles in the sanctuary. The marble and limestone Gothic high altar and reredos are crowned by a central tabernacle throne. In front of this is a small altar with a faux marble finish, designed by local craftsman Simone Aresu around 2010. The lower half of the chancel walls were wainscoted by the 11th Baron in memory of his wife, and the church bears numerous banners, armorial shields and brass memorials to members of the North family. Placed in front of the lancets at the west end are three panels of C16 stained glass in Renaissance style; brought from the Norths’ house at Wroxton Abbey, Oxfordshire, possibly via Kirtling Hall, whence the glass was removed in 1904. There is more recent glass in the nave and chancel commemorating the golden wedding anniversary of Lord William and Lady Frederica North (1908), an Annunciation erected by Frederica North (1910), a window to an Oratorian priest, Fr Philip Gordon (d.1900, erected by Lord and Lady North), and a St Theresa window to Frederica (d.1915), erected by her children. Trefoil windows in the south aisle depict the Sacred Heart and Agnus Dei. The benches in the nave appear to be original, supplemented by later benches at the west end and in the aisle. Near the holy water stoup by the north door is a photographic copy of a 1915 watercolour of the church interior, showing communion rails and a framed picture occupying the now blank wall over the tabernacle throne at the centre of the apse.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

49202

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Little, B, Catholic Churches since 1623, (1966)
Bradley, Simon, Pevsner, Nikolaus, The Buildings of England: Cambridgeshire, (2014), 586-7
Proctor, R, Building the Modern Church: Roman Catholic Church Architecture in Britain, 1955 to 1975, (2014)
Atkinson, TD, Hampson, EM, Long, ET, Meekings, CAF, Woodgate, GMG, A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 4, City of Ely; Ely, N and S Witchford and Wisbech Hundreds, (2002), 77
Martin, C, A Glimpse of Heaven: Catholic Churches of England and Wales, (2009)

Other
‘Catholic Church of Our Lady and St Philip Neri in Roman Catholic Diocese of East Anglia’, March 2020

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Print the official list entry