Roman Catholic Cathedral of St John the Baptist, Norwich, Norfolk

Summary

Cathedral church built 1882-1910 to the design of George Gilbert Scott, junior, and John Oldrid Scott.

Description

MATERIALS: Walls of Beer stone, Pennine Gritstone and clunch over a brick core with Frosterley marble details and lead roofs.

PLAN: The Cathedral is cruciform in plan with chapels projecting eastwards from both transepts and a sacristy at the end of the south transept which abuts Cathedral House (separately listed at Grade II).

EXTERIOR: The exterior is all in the Early English style of the 13th century, in ashlar with consistent use of lancet windows under hood mouldings with stiff leaf decoration and stone or Frosterley marble shafts.

The west front is set between turrets with blind arcading on the upper stages topped by spirelets. The main door is deeply recessed in a gabled porch flanked by blind arches which three tall lancet windows above and three in the gable. The timber doors have elaborate iron work decoration.

The aisled nave is of 10 bays divided by buttresses which rise to flying buttresses on the clerestorey topped by finials and with a single lancet window in each bay. On the north side the baptistry and porch project slightly from the two western aisle bays. The porch door is deeply recessed and flanked by statue niches, the baptistry has a single lancet and both have arcading in the gables. The south side of the nave is the same as the north, but with simpler aisle windows. The late C20 Narthex extension projects from the second bay from the west and the St Joseph Chapel is attached to the three eastern bays, matching the aisle and projecting from it by one bay under a pitched roof.

The south transept is of three bays with tall, plain lancets on the east side above St Joseph’s Chapel and the Sacristy vestibule. The southern gable end, above the single storey apsidal-ended Sacristy, has five lancets and a wheel window with a spirelet at one corner. On the east side of the transept is the projecting gable and octagonal turret of St George’s chapel. The north transept has three tall lancets flanked by buttresses with statue niches on the north end and the two-storey apsidal-ended Walsingham chapel projecting from the east side. On the west side is a projecting porch. The double doors feature elaborate iron work and are under a carved tympanum with a crucifixion flanked by figures. The crossing tower is of three stages with slim clasping buttresses at the corners. There are two pairs of lancets at the belfry stage on each face with blind arcading above and a crenelated parapet.

The Cathedral’s eastern arm is of three bays with flying buttresses above aisles which terminate in octagonal spirelets. The east end is highly decorative, with deeply recessed lancets in groups of five on three levels flanked by buttresses with statue niches rising to octagonal spirelets. Below the east end is a columbarium of four bays with quadripartite vaulting in clunch. It is entered from ramped, walled walkways through portal arches of Pennine Gritstone.

INTERIOR: The interior is vaulted throughout, quadripartite in the nave and aisles, tierceron in the transepts, crossing and sanctuary and with Hoptonwood stone flooring. The windows, doors and arcading are all in the lancet style with hood mouldings and stone or Frosterley marble shafts with the exception of the nave and Sanctuary arcades which rise from large drum columns. Stiff leaf decoration is found throughout, becoming more common and more elaborate in the eastern end.

The vaulted north porch has timber doors with elaborate ironwork under an arch with a band of carved figures. Beside the porch is the entrance to the sunken Baptistry with original wrought iron gates. Blind arcading surrounds the octagonal font of Frosterley marble with a suspended cover and there are windows to Our Lady and St John the Baptist. Above the western gallery are three lancets containing a crucifixion scene flanked by Moses bearing the Commandments and the prophet Elijah. The gallery is carried on an arcade and beneath it the main west doors have metal framed, cast glass inner doors designed by Russell Taylor Architects in 2006.

Above north and south nave arcades are triforia with four arches per bay separated by engaged shafts rising to the vaulting. The triforia are not functional wall passages and let onto roof voids above the aisle. The clerestories above have plain glass in simple lancets while the aisle lancets have geometric grisaille glass moved from the clerestoreies after 1946. Eight bays of the nave have benches with built-in kneelers and simple flat-topped ends set on late C20 timber platforms and more are found in the transepts.

Blind arcading in six bays of the south aisle is broken by projecting piers with clusters of marble shafts flanking a single fluted shaft rising to the vaulting. The fourth bay from the west has a larger central arch with clustered columns and an entrance to the Narthex extension was made through the arcade in the second bay in 2004. The blind arcading in the north aisle has a different rhythm and deeper clusters of shafts but only a plain stone shaft between each rising to the vaulting. The second bay from the north porch door contains a picture of Our Lady of Czestochowa and a stone memorial plaque erected in 1982 to the memory of Polish men and women who died in the Second World War. In the fifth bay painted decoration in gold and blue by Lillian Dagless of Walsingham is behind a statue of St Anthony of Padua dating from 1939 and in the 10th bay a small piscina in Frosterley marble is beside a secondary north entrance door.

The eastern four bays of the south aisle are an arcade open to the sunken St Joseph Chapel, originally a memorial chapel to the Duchess of Norfolk who died in 1887. The western bay includes an original timber tracery screen, probably designed by GG Scott. The chapel has vaulting similar to that in the south aisle, but the blind arcading and lancet windows are larger and more richly decorated. The glass reflects the original dedication to Our Lady with windows to Saints Barbara, Esther and a group of female Saints with floral names as well as one to St Paulinus of York. All are by John Hardman Powell with GG Scott. In the chapel sanctuary the arcading is more richly decorated, and the floor is raised by one step, a change when the altar was installed in 1957. It was moved westward in 1969. A simple late C20 timber screen is behind it.

The south transept has an eastern aisle containing an organ installed in 1903 and St George’s chapel. The chapel altar reredos is of small-framed timber panelling below a window to Our Lady of Pity. The blind arcading to north and south contains memorial plaques to the fallen of the First World War. The southern end of the transept has a gallery behind three tall arches. The five lancets above have stained glass depicting The Birthday of the Church and below are confessionals with panelled interiors and timber doors with open tracery in the upper half. The west side of the transept opens into the Sacristy vestibule which has geometric grisaille glass in the windows and a pair of doors with decorative ironwork leading to the Sacristy.

The Sacristy has a timber panelled ceiling, wood block floor and partition walls enclosing the Principal Sacristy and Service Sacristy. The Choir Sacristy is at the east end. The Principal Sacristy, which connects to Cathedral House, is lined with fitted furnishings incorporating an altar, with another altar and sanctorium in Frosterley marble. The Service Sacristy also features fitted furnishings. From the Choir Sacristy a passage with stone wall brackets for ceremonial staffs and a candle lighting niche leads under the south transept to the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. From this passage a stair leads down to the former Lower Sacristy (now the Cathedral archive) in a semi-basement.

The north transept has blind arcading at ground and triforium level with deeply set double arches on the east side, simple single arches on the west. The clerestorey windows above are simple except for an elaborate, deeply recessed arch with ironwork screen (probably by JO Scott) in the northern bay of the eastern clerestorey. This denotes the ‘secret chapel’, a space above the Walsingham Chapel not formally dedicated as such and only accessed by a spiral stair in the wall. A statue niche is above the double doors of the porch in the west wall. The three large lancets in the north end, collectively called the Queen’s Window, were designed by Dunstan Powell and JO Scott and renewed by Adrian Gilbert Scott following wartime damage in 1942. The centre window is the Virgin and Child flanked by Queen Esther and Sheba and Solomon.

Projecting from the east side is the Walsingham Chapel which has blind arcading on five faces and vaulting above. Windows by Clayton and Bell of 1920 depict events associated with the Shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham including those which relate to the Dukes of Norfolk and the foundation of the Norwich church. The altar, dating from 1937 has a painted and gilded reredos with the crucifixion and a figure of the Virgin and Child above.

The crossing tower has blind arcading at triforium level with small, simple lancets above between clustered stone shafts rising to dramatic vaulting which frames a timber trapdoor to the belfry decorated with tracery. Under the crossing a raised stone apron extends from the Sanctuary with a simple table altar of 1997 by Anthony Rossi. The carved beam and rood of 1910-1911 installed by Robert Bridgeman and Sons of Litchfield and Peter Rendl of Oberammergau, possibly to a design by JO Scott, spans the chancel arch.

The sanctuary has four-bay arcades to north and south with plain drum columns, the easternmost embellished with marble shafts. Riddel posts stand in the westerly bays on each side and simple timber benches flank the choir before the stone throne on four steps. To the east of this is a stone screen at the high altar position with six pilasters on the west face and a tester suspended above. The eastern window comprises two tiers of three lancets, the most highly decorated in the Cathedral. The triforium arcades are formed of paired lancets of similar richness. The eastern glass is a complex series of designs by Dunstan Powell relating to the Creation and Fall, the Redemption of the Human Race and the Sanctification of Mankind.

Both side aisles have JO Scott’s bronze screens in the easterly arcade arches and the external aisle walls have rich marble shafts rising to the vaulting reflecting the quality of work in the Sanctuary. In the south aisle is the Blessed Sacrament Chapel with a window by Dunstan Powell depicting Biblical scenes relating to the Holy Sacrament. A doorway to the Choir Sacristy passage has a carving of angels with musical instruments above. In the northern aisle the Chapel of the Precious Blood has an altar installed in 2022 designed by architect Suzi Pendlebury and Cathedral Mason Bruce Riley made from French grey marble reused from the mesa of the 1957 high altar with new Clipsham stone elements.

History

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. 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. In 1850 Pope Pius X ‘restored’ the role of bishops, cathedrals and dioceses in England, inviting even grander architectural projects. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) introduced profound reforms to the Catholic church, including architectural changes informed by the Liturgical movement and the reordering of churches to reflect a greater ecumenism and communality of worship.

Building for Norwich’s Roman Catholic community in the modern era began with a church constructed on Ten Bells Lane in 1758-62 and a chapel near St John’s Alley in 1791. By 1829 the community had outgrown the Ten Bells Lane site and a replacement was built on Willow Lane. In October 1878 the 15th Duke of Norfolk (1860-1917) wrote to Bishop Amherst of Northampton expressing a wish to build a larger church for the Catholics of Norwich. When the site of the former Norwich Gaol became available the Duke funded its acquisition and construction of a new church. Work began preparing this prominent site, situated just beyond the medieval city walls, early in 1881.

The Duke decided the new church should be built in the Early English architectural style of the early C13 and maintained an active role in the design process following the appointment of prominent architect George Gilbert Scott junior (1839-1897) in February 1881. Scott’s design was in most respects an exemplary exercise in the Early English, but in some aspects it departed from English precedents to reflect French architectural traditions, possibly suggested by the Duke. Due to GG Scott’s declining health his brother, John Oldrid Scott (1841–1913) periodically took over as lead architect, first in 1884 and increasingly from 1888 until GG Scott’s withdrawal from the project in 1894.

The foundations were laid in 1882-1883 and building of the nave formally commenced on 17th July 1884. The nave was opened in 1894 with a temporary wall at the east end behind which construction continued, mostly to the designs of JO Scott. The chief stone mason was James Ovens of Norwich and the stained glass was designed by John Hardman Powell working with the Scott brothers. Powell’s son, Dunstan Powell, designed the later glass installed at the eastern end and in the north transept.

Funding was restricted during the later years of construction so that an organ intended for the west nave gallery was never installed and bells not placed in the tower. The church was fully opened on 8th December 1910 and dedicated to St John the Baptist but establishing liturgical arrangements in the Sanctuary and chapels was a gradual process over several subsequent decades.

On completion of the principal building works a temporary high altar was installed but it was not until 1957 that a permanent one was constructed in the Sanctuary. This was in memory of Fr. George Fressanges and designed by Adrian Gilbert Scott in Hornton stone. An altar was also consecrated in the southern side altar (the Blessed Sacrament chapel) at this time and bronze screens were installed in the arcades to both south and north of the Sanctuary which had previously been part of the gates to the boundary wall around the site, designed by JO Scott.

Following the Second Vatican Council, JO Scott’s altar rails were removed from the Sanctuary in 1971 and a throne, new altar and steps installed in 1976. Choir stalls from the chapel of Notre Dame Convent were added in 1981. In 2000 paintings of Saints Felix, Etheldreda and Edmund were mounted below the east windows and the Chapel of East Anglian Saints created behind the high altar. Further reordering in 2007 brought a new altar of Ancaster stone and Frosterley marble with 12 riddel posts around it and a new lectern designed by Russell Taylor Architects. In 2009 several C19 benches were brought to the Sanctuary from the Anglican Church of St Stephen in Norwich with a tester designed by Russell Taylor. In 2018 the riddel posts were reduced in number, the eastern end of the Sanctuary refloored and a new altar erected on the site of previous high altar, with the Chapel of East Anglian Saints behind removed.

Another consequence of the Second Vatican Council was a new temporary altar placed under the crossing in 1969 designed by Donovan Purcell. This was replaced with a permanent stone altar by Antony Rossi in 1977 which incorporated parts of the 1957 Fressanges high altar from the Sanctuary including the marble Mensa on pedestals made from the steps and raised on a new stone apron of three steps. In 1997 a new pulpit by Anthony Rossi was added.

The Chapel of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour on the east side of the north transept became the Walsingham chapel with three windows designed by Clayton and Bell, installed in 1920. One was changed to show the visit of Cardinal Bourne to the Walsingham Slipper Chapel in 1934 and the chapel altar, designed and made by James & Lilian Dagless of Walsingham was installed in 1937. The Children's Window by Dunstan Powell on the chapel’s north side suffered wartime damage in 1942 and was replaced by John Hardman Powell’s Lady Window relocated from the north aisle of the nave.

The Cathedral complex also includes stone boundary walls designed by JO Scott and Cathedral House, a presbytery, built by JO Scott to a layout established by GG Scott abutting the south transept and Sacristy. These are separately listed at Grade II. The only substantial addition made to the building has been the Narthex extension, begun in 2004 to the designs of Anthony Rossi and completed as a larger building in 2010 by Russell Taylor which connects to an earlier parish hall of 1972 by Purcell Miller Tritton.

The church was first listed at Grade I on 26th February 1954 and designated as the Cathedral Church of St John the Baptist for the Diocese of East Anglia in 1976.

Reasons for Listing

The Roman Catholic Cathedral of St John the Baptist is of exceptional interest and listed at Grade I for the following principal reasons:

Historic Interest:

* As an illustration of the continuation and revival of Roman Catholic worship in Norwich in the late C19 and early C20 and as a major Roman Catholic place of worship nationally.

Architectural Interest:

* As an exceptional work of Early English Gothic Revival design by a major architect, George Gilbert Scott, junior with John Oldrid Scott which contains high quality masonry and stained glass.

Group Value:

* St John the Baptist forms part of a functional group with Cathedral House (Grade II, NHLE 1210874) and the boundary walls to the cathedral complex (Grade II, NHLE 1051818) also designed by GG Scott, junior and JO Scott as a unified scheme.

External Links

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