Roman Catholic Church of St Marie

Details

36/0/10012 LUGSDALE ROAD 22-DEC-06 St Marie's Roman Catholic Church

II Roman Catholic church. 1864, by E.W. Pugin, architect. Red brick with sandstone dressings and blue brick banding beneath a Welsh slate roof covering. PLAN: Linear single cell plan with nave and apse beneath a single roof structure and lean-to aisles with steeply-pitched monopitch roofs terminating just below the eaves line of the nave. EXTERIOR: Liturgical west front with 3 stepped lancets to coped nave gable, set above paired doorways with shouldered sandstone lintols. At gable apex an open bellcote with cross finial, supported on corbelled stonework and miniature columns. Flanking 7-bay aisles with shallow stepped buttresses separating paired aisle lancets with hood moulds. North aisle with gabled doorway to west end bay, with gable copings above wide moulded stone pointed arch. Within arch head, a mosaic tympanum with the inscription 'I am the Immaculate Conception', added in 1931. Below the tympanum, paired doorways separated by a shallow stone column. East end gables to aisles incorporate large circular openings with hood moulds below cross finials. Canted sanctuary, with paired lancets with trefoil heads to each facet rising from moulded string course. INTERIOR: Spacious and lofty interior with arched open roof trusses incorporating thin metal tie rods. The roof is underdrawn with wooden boarding, that to the apse with painted and stencilled decoration. Aisle arcades with tall slender ashlar columns with plainly-shaped and painted capitals supporting tall pointed arcade arches. Arched heads to lancet windows to both aisles and apse are carried on slender attached columns. West end with glazed entrance screen below wide shallow arch which carries the galleried front to the organ loft. Wooden altars terminate the aisles, which, together with the nave retain original benches throughout. The apse incorporates a richly decorated and inscribed alabaster reredos with painted scenes depicting The Nativity, The Annunciation (made up of separate illustrations of the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary) and the Assumption, set on gold backgrounds. These are attributed to J.A. Pippet (1841-1903) of Hardman and Co, Birmingham. A richly-carved altar and benediction throne is set below an elaborate canopy to the centre of the reredos. There are marble rails to the main altar and side altars. HISTORY: Edward Welby Pugin (1834-1875)was trained by his father A.W.N. Pugin, and became the foremost Catholic church architect of his generation. St Marie's Church is an example of Pugin's 'industrial' designs, which were intended to provide capacious and well-finished places of worship for expanding communities such as Widnes, where a rapidly developing chemicals industry provided employment for, amongst others, Irish immigrants. The construction of the church was funded by congregation members, and the church remains closely associated with the nearby St Gerard's school, formerly St Marie's Junior School, although the surrounding terraced housing has now been demolished.

SOURCES: Roderick O'Donnell 'Pugin, Edward Welby' The Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. 2004-6.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: St Marie's Church, Widnes is of special architectural interest as a mid-C19 Catholic church designed by E.W. Pugin, the most notable Catholic church architect of the mid-late C19, and built during his most significant period of church commissions. Although modelled with restraint and simplicity externally, this spacious and lofty church survives in almost complete condition with Pugin's interior design clearly readable throughout, the focal point of which is a richly decorated example of an altar and reredos ensemble which dominates the apse of the building. The church is little-altered, and retains most of the original fixtures and fittings designed by Pugin. It thus fully meets the criteria for listing.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

502638

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
O'Donnell, R, The Dictionary of National Biography: Pugin, Edward Welby, (2004-2006)

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