Details
RYE
TQ WATCHBELL STREET
776/0/10011 RC Church of St Anthony of Padua
22-FEB-10
GV II
Roman Catholic church, built in 1927-9, designed JB Mendham for the Franciscan Order of Friars in Romanesque manner. The friary is not included in the listing.
MATERIALS: brown brick, the entrance front and rear smooth rendered, stone and tile dressings, pantiled roofs, copper-clad apse roof.
PLAN: a five-bay aisled nave entered under a three-bay loggia. To the south is a tall campanile. An octagonal tower with an octagonal tile roof sits over the chancel; leading off an apsidal sanctuary are narrow north and south bays in the form of a Greek cross. At the rear are vestries overlooking terraced gardens.
EXTERIOR: the entrance is set behind a three-bay loggia supported on stone shafts with enriched cushion capitals. To each side are tile-hung buttress piers. The entrance has a moulded architrave beneath a swan-necked pediment above which is a small niche; it is flanked by round-headed windows. Set above it is a large round-arched west window in a stone architrave with moulded shafts, under a flush tile arch and flanked by a Lombardic frieze. To each side is a narrow vertical light, above is an encircled cross. The eaves are of moulded brick and tile. The foundation stone is inscribed 'AMDG Oct 11th 1927'. To the south is a tall campanile, square on plan and also in brick, with a rendered bell stage with brick- lined openings with tile keys. Side elevations have pantiled aisles which have round-arched windows. Clerestorey windows are rectangular with paired round-headed lights; above, but detached, are alternating shallow triangular and segmental pediments. The tower has a small round-headed window in each face and an octagonal slightly splayed roof surmounted by a cross. Short, gabled north and south arms have triple round-headed windows. The east end has a hemispherical copper clad apse, and below it are flat roofed vestries which have replaced windows.
INTERIOR: interior wall surfaces are smooth rendered, highlighting the richer fittings. The nave arcade is of plain round arches supported on stone or stone composite shafts with carved and incised capitals each with the Tau cross, the symbol used by St Francis in his writings. Cornices are moulded, and aisle roofs are boarded over rafters. The nave roof has arch-braced trusses with a plain king post and struts and cusped principal rafters supported on slender wall posts resting on stone corbels, and exposed square cut purlins over horizontal boarding. At the west end is a timber choir and organ gallery over a pair of doors leading to a porch which has pointed arched doorways to north and south and a small niche. At the eastern end of the aisles are side chapels, to the south a Lady Chapel and to the north dedicated to St Anthony. Each has a timber altar with a beaten copper front panel or shield, Over the sanctuary is an octagonal dome, lined horizontally in timber, supported on a smooth-sided octagonal drum with a small round arched window on each face. Each side of the sanctuary, tall round arches, supported on stone shafts with rectangular capitals and bases, lead to shallow bays lit by three-light windows.
The altar rails, altar and pulpit are of veined marble, the altar enhanced by flush panels of deep red marble. Behind the altar which is now detached and set forward on a plinth is an ornate aedicular canopy on twisted shafts, and in front of it the tabernacle which has beaten gilded doors. The altar rails have brass gates with filigree panels. Above is a Byzantine rood cross donated by Radclyffe Hall, author of the controversial novel 'The Well of Loneliness' (1928) and former resident of Rye. The font is a hemispherical bowl set on enriched pink marble shafts. Internal doors are of stained pine, some with small upper glazed panels with rectangular leaded lights.
Stained glass includes two windows of St Anthony and St Michael which were brought from the previous church. Triple sanctuary windows are dedicated to English martyrs and Franciscan saints. The nave is lined in Stations of the Cross. At the west end is a war memorial in the form of a Calvary.
HISTORY
The Roman Catholic church of St Anthony of Padua, Rye was built in 1927-9 by JB Mendham to replace the church of St Walburga which had been built in 1900 when the Roman Catholic parish was restored. Early in the C20 Fr Bonaventure Scebberas OFM Conv arrived from Malta to restore the Franciscan community in Britain, first by working in Rye in 1906. By 1910 the parish church had passed into the care of the Franciscans and by 1926 was too small for both the congregation and the friars. The dedication to the church changed when the new church was built, as St Walburga was not associated with the Franciscan Order. It closely emulates Byzantine and early Christian Romanesque models.
John Bernard Mendham (1888-1951) was born in St Leonards on Sea but was brought up in Buenos Aires where his father worked as an engineer and where he became familiar with Spanish colonial architecture. He was surveyor and architect to the Bournville Village Trust before World War I and worked in private practice in London from 1922 to 1939. Towards the end of his career he worked on Coventry Cathedral. He built a number of churches in Sussex including the Roman Catholic church at Burgess Hill (1939). His drawings for St Anthony of Padua show his intentions for the church from all angles in an inter-war interpretation.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES
Attached to the church is a two storey friary house also by Mendham, which is excluded from the listing but is historically associated with the church.
SOURCES:
The Catholic Church of St Anthony of Padua, Rye (church guide)
1907-2007 Centenary of the return of the Order of Friars Minor Conventual to Greyfriars to Great Britain and Ireland, (2007)
D R Elleray, Sussex Places of Worship, (2004)
Teresa Sladen and Nicholas Antrim, Architectural and Historic Review of Churches in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Arundel,(2005)
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The Church of St Anthony of Padua, built in 1927-9 by J B Mendham for the Franciscan Order is listed for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: St Anthony of Padua is an unusual Romanesque inter-war church, closely emulating early Christian and Byzantine models, reflecting its dedication
* Composition: good arrangment of contrasting simple forms and rich fittings, made of high-quality materials
* Completeness: intact fixtures and fittings some reflecting the wide outreach of the Franciscan order
* Historical Interest: early association of Rye with the restoration of the Franciscan order in Britain from 1906
This List entry has been amended to add the source for War Memorials Register. This source was not used in the compilation of this List entry but is added here as a guide for further reading, 30 October 2017.
