Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Redeemer, St Wulstan and St Eadburga

Summary

A Roman Catholic parish church, built 1958-9 to designs by Hugh Bankart, FRIBA.

Reasons for Designation

The Roman Catholic Church of The Holy Redeemer, St Wulstan and St Eadburga, built in 1958-9 to designs by Hugh Bankart, is listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:
* Historic interest: the church, designed by Bankart to principles developed by Fr James Crichton, represents an important, early response to liturgical change, before such ideas became widespread through the Second Vatican Council;
* Architectural interest: the building is not of great intrinsic interest, but is in a pleasant, Arts and Crafts-influenced style which allows clear focus on the sacrament;
* Fixtures and fittings: the church has a good suite, all designed and made by individual artists and craftspeople, including Joseph Cribb, Rosamund Fletcher and Dom Charles Norris.

History

The mission at Pershore was founded in 1913 by the Rev Norman Holly, who was serving as private chaplain to the Berkeley family at Spetchley Park. A 1880s iron chapel which had become redundant after the building of the new Church of St Mary and St Egwin at Evesham in 1912 was brought to Pershore and re-erected in Priest Lane. After Fr Holly’s departure in 1917 the congregation remained without a priest and was subsequently served from Upton until 1943, with a dwindling congregation. After the Second World War, a Catholic revival took place in Pershore, and in 1957 a new church was planned by the new priest, Fr James Crichton, for which the diocese offered a loan of £10,000.

Fr Crichton was a significant writer on the liturgy, who in 1943 had written an article for the Society of St Gregory on his ‘dream church’, highlighting the centrality of the altar in church design. From 1952, he was editor of the Society’s journal, Liturgy. Fr Crichton attended the International Congress on the Pastoral Liturgy at Assisi in 1956, where Pope Pius XII was the keynote speaker. Fr Crichton brought back ideas of the liturgical movement being developed on the continent, which had to date made little impact in Britain, but which he determined to put into practice at Pershore. Hugh Bankart, FRIBA of Bath was commissioned to design an inexpensive church which would incorporate these modern ideas of church planning. The brief resulted in a simple rectangular design with a square plan, with a central altar to encourage full and active participation of the congregation in the liturgy. The altar was set forward to allow for Mass to be said with the priest facing the people. The Blessed Sacrament was reserved in a separate chapel. The font was placed on the central axis of the church in the vestibule. A planned detached campanile adjacent to the NW corner of the building was never constructed, but otherwise the design was executed in accordance with Bankart’s model published in the Catholic Building Review for 1957 (see SOURCES). The church opened in time for Easter 1959. It was agreed that all the fittings should be made by individual artists and craftspeople, rather than catalogue items, and these were installed over the following months.

Details

A Roman Catholic parish church, built 1958-9 to designs by Hugh Bankart, FRIBA.

MATERIALS
Red brick, laid in Flemish bond, with artificial stone dressings; the roof structure is of steel, covered in clay Roman tiles.

PLAN
A simple rectangular plan.

EXTERIOR
The church is a high single storey, the long elevations of five bays divided by brick buttresses, each bay with a rectangular window with hollow chamfered surround set high in the wall, with small, rectangular paned metal windows. The west front has a flat-roofed narthex across most of its width, with the roof continuing beyond on either side to form canopies over the side doors. Above the narthex is a tripartite window with coloured glass. In the gable is a corbel for a statue, though no statue appears ever to have been installed. To the east the chapels flanking the sanctuary have flat roofs, and set lower, flat-roofed vestries run across the east end of the building.

INTERIOR
The main entrance opens to the baptistery with its stone font, centrally placed in the narthex in line with the altar. To the right are confessionals. The main worship space has a composition stone floor, plain plastered and painted walls and a cambered ceiling. The sanctuary is set on a shaped platform against the blind east wall, and is flanked by round-headed openings to the small side chapels, which have circular windows to their sides and are top-lit by circular roof-lights.

PRINCIPAL FITTINGS
The principal original furnishings include the Portland stone high altar and the ALTARS in the Blessed Sacrament and Lady chapels, all carved by Joseph Cribb of Ditchling. The hammered anodised FIGURE of the Risen Christ against a cross and the altar fittings in the side chapels are by Michael Murray. The octagonal stone FONT is by John Skelton and is set within a sunken circle. The low-relief Portland stone STATIONS OF THE CROSS (two of which had been exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1959) were carved by Rosamund Fletcher of Oxford. The stained GLASS roundels in the Blessed Sacrament chapel (Last Supper) and Lady Chapel (Annunciation) are by Philip Brown. Later furnishings include the wrought iron and copper RAIL around the font by Alan Evans of Stroud, and the three-light dalle-de-verre GLASS west window, by Dom Charles Norris of Buckfast Abbey.

Sources

Books and journals
Proctor, R, Building the Modern Church: Roman Catholic Church Architecture in Britain, 1955 to 1975, (2014), 142-6
Scarisbrick, JJ, History of the Diocese of Birmingham 1850-2000, (2008), 155
Crichton, J D, Holy Redeemer Pershore, The Story of a Parish, (1989)

Other
The Architectural History Practice Limited: Churches in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham: An Architectural and Historical Review Prepared for English Heritage and the Archdiocese of Birmingham (2015)
Catholic Building Review (Southern edition), 1957, pp 88-89

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