Reasons for Designation
Our Lady and St Walstan Roman Catholic church is recommended for designation at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It is a comparatively little-altered, good quality example of a Roman Catholic church of the 1830s when very few were built in East Anglia.
* It was designed by J C Buckler and it reflects the ideas of Pugin, with whom Buckler was working at the time.
* It shows innovation both in style, being First Pointed Gothic, and in plan-form, having a well-defined chancel.
* It has good fittings and stained glass windows.
Details
This list entry was subjected to a Minor Enhancement on the 26 October 2022 to update the description and to reformat the text to current standards
1135/0/10001
COSTESSEY
TOWN HOUSE ROAD
Our Lady and St Walstan RC Church
05-MAR-10
II
Roman Catholic Church. 1834-41. By J.C. Buckler for the Jerningham family of Costessey Hall. Red brick laid in Flemish bond; pantiled nave, concrete tiled chancel. Plan of nave and chancel with C21 polygonal west porch.
EXTERIOR: large preaching nave of seven bays with stepped side buttresses separating tall single lancets. Angle buttresses to west end. Triple stepped lancets to west above single-storey west porch. Double stone bellcote to east nave gable, on brick plinth, lost upper stage with no bells. Lower two-bay chancel with single lancets north and south separated by stepped side buttresses. Three stepped lancets to east end.
INTERIOR: stone west gallery (doubling as organ loft) consisting of three double-chamfered arches on circular columns and responds. One stiff-leaf roundel in central spandrels. String course and plain parapet. Stone staircase in south-west corner, with panelled balustrade. North-west corner opposite partly filled in. West gallery decorated with two roundels of stiff-leaf sculpture and a hanging shield decorated with a crowned M and W. Panelled dado below nave windows. Roof of principals, secondary rafters and ridge piece. Chamfered chancel arch with roll-moulded hoodmould. Panelled chancel dado, raised for reredos with cresting only fully carved along the east wall. Circular font with arcade of trefoils in arches to the bowl gifted from Buckler. Stations of the Cross painted in oil on canvas within timber frames. There are numbered benches made for the Church, the ends topped with a roundel carved with a rose with letters of ‘ihu’ for Jesu and ‘Mercy’ in Gothic script. East chancel lancets with glass by James Grant, 1841, that in centre light probably replaced by Joseph Grant c. 1860. One south and one north chancel lancet with glass by James Grant, 1841. Below each lancet is a square Cossey red brick with a recessed cross.
HISTORY: J.C. Buckler was commissioned in about 1826 by the Jerningham family to begin remodelling Costessey Hall, the family seat, and in 1834 began a new Catholic church in the village when he had only the experience of remodelling the chancel at Adderbury, Oxfordshire, behind him. It took seven years to complete and during this time Buckler was working with Pugin on remodelling Oxburgh Hall and building its chapel, and will have known of his advanced ideas. Buckler was thus aware of the Gothic-Classical stylistic question and also of the move from Nonconformist design in Catholic circles, and this church is advanced in style and in one feature in plan-form as well. For style he chose the First Pointed, so the building relies on lancet windows, in the flanks separated by stepped buttresses. Entirely new for East Anglia and new even in England for a Roman Catholic church, however, is the provision of a well-defined chancel of two bays, separated on the interior by a pointed moulded chancel arch. The west end of the nave still has a gallery, here of stone and presenting three bold pointed arches. In the chancel are five important early stained glass windows by the Grant Bros.
SOURCES: Wilson, W, D, Roman Catholic Churches and Chapels in East Anglia, unpubd. report for English Heritage (1998)
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: Our Lady and St Walstan Roman Catholic church is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It is a comparatively little-altered, good quality example of a Roman Catholic church of the 1830s when very few were built in East Anglia. * It was designed by J C Buckler and it reflects the ideas of Pugin, with whom Buckler was working at the time. * It shows innovation both in style, being First Pointed Gothic, and in plan-form, having a well-defined chancel. * It has good fittings and stained glass windows.
