Roman Catholic Church of St Thomas of Hereford and attached Presbytery, Weobley, County of Herefordshire

Summary

A Roman Catholic church from the mid-1830s with an attached early-C19 presbytery.

Description

A Roman Catholic church from the mid-1830s with an attached Regency style presbytery.

MATERIALS: the church has stone rubble walls with brick heads to windows and a slate roof. The presbytery is in brick with a slate roof.

PLAN: the church is rectangular, orientated with its shorter ends to the east and west with a small porch to the west end. Two single storey lean-tos are to the north of the church. The presbytery is attached to the east end of the church, and also is rectangular with its shorter ends to east and west.

CHURCH

EXTERIOR: walls are in stone rubble, with two courses of red brick over its large, pointed arch headed, ‘Y’ tracery leaded-light windows. The roof is pitched with the ridge running east / west and a coped parapet gable to the west end with a bellcote at its apex. The south elevation faces the road and is lit by three large windows. The west elevation has a centrally located pitched-roof porch with a small arched, leaded-light window. Directly over the porch is one of the larger ‘Y’ tracery windows. There is a single door to the west end of the lean-to sacristy addition.

The rear, north facing elevation of the church is obscured by two adjoining mono-pitch roofed lean-to additions, with a brick chimney stack. The higher and longer addition is to the west and contains the Sacristy, the lower and shorter to the east is a rear entrance to the presbytery. Both are in red brick in Flemish bond, with the Sacristy having two round headed multi-paned metal windows and the porch having a six light metal casement window. The porch has a door in its east elevation, whilst the church abuts the presbytery to its east.

INTERIOR: the porch has a quarry tile floor and wood panelled walls and double oak doors to the west end of the church. The church is one open space with a stair up to a gallery at the west end, altar at the east end and a Lady Chapel in the south-western corner. A C20 suspended ceiling obscures the roof structure. The walls are oak panelled to the height of the window cills which have deep reveals which splay downwards.

Most of the furnishings such as the altar, pews and lectern are oak and date to the 1930s and are in the Arts and Crafts style popular in Catholic Churches in the C20. The altar and some statues by the Hereford woodcarver and sculptor Charles Victor Gertner (1881-1957). The Stations of the Cross are small stone panels carved in deep relief. Other statuary was supplied by Belmont Abbey in the early-C20. Further C20 decoration on the long side walls includes shields depicting the heraldry of notable Catholic families, and on the west wall by the stairs up to the gallery is a wooden tablet relief carved in the image of St Thomas Cantilupe by Dame Joanna Jamieson, a former Mother Superior of Stanbrook Abbey in Worcestershire.

PRESBYTERY

EXTERIOR: two stories in three bays under a hipped roof. Windows generally have plain stone cills and rubbed brick flat-arch lintels. There are four brick chimney stacks each with two flues, these rise through the eastern and western roof slopes. Doors are C21 including the reinstated six-panelled front door.

The principal elevation faces south to the road. It is in three bays with the central bay narrower than those to the sides, and projecting from them by a half brick depth. At ground floor level in the central bay is the front door with a fanlight. Either side of the door is a six-over-six sash. At first floor level each bay has a three-over-six sash window, the central one being narrower than the flanking ones. The east elevation has a door at ground floor and single three-over-six sash window at first floor above it.

The rear, north elevation has been altered at ground floor level to its east end where it appears there were doorways, now partially blocked and converted to three C20 windows under flat brick lintels. At ground floor there is a six-over-six sash to the west end. At first floor level are three windows; a small C20 window centrally, flanked by three-over-six sashes. The older windows here have flat-headed brick cambered arches as opposed to the rubbed bricks to front and side elevations.

INTERIOR: inside the front door is a large parish room, formerly two separate reception rooms. This retains early-C19 features such as two fire surrounds, a recessed arched door surround, a picture rail and skirting. Behind this is an enclosed stair hall with a stick baluster staircase, a kitchen and another reception room which retains a fire surround, dado rail and coving to the ceiling. Otherwise historic features are limited, though C19 four-panel doors are common throughout. The first floor was converted in the early-C21 into a flat for the priest.

History

St Thomas of Hereford’s Church in Weobley is of note for its date, thought to be 1834 or 1835, making it the first post-Reformation Catholic Church in Herefordshire. This early date is confirmed by the presence of the church and presbytery on the 1838 tithe map for Weobley in a plot called ‘Chapel Meadow’, with the owner and occupier listed as a Reverend John Duck. It had been illegal to build any Catholic Church in England until 1791, and further proscriptions on the faith were only lifted with the 1829 Catholic Relief Act. The Catholic diocesan structure under bishops in England (which could help with access to funding for church building) was not restored until 1850, so St Thomas’s had to be entirely privately financed. This funding was supplied by the Monnington family, the then Lords of the Manor of nearby Sarnesfield who had continued to practice their Catholic faith through the years of prohibition following the Reformation.

St Thomas’s is architecturally very modest in style, as are many of the Catholic Church’s buildings of this date; even where funding allowed, anti-Catholic feeling in English society in the C19 discouraged ostentatious display. The age of the adjoining Regency style presbytery is uncertain, though in the Weobley Women’s Institute scrapbook from 1965 it is referred to as a converted farmhouse purchased from the Marquis of Bath by Thomas Monnington. Around 1850 a schoolroom was built behind the church (now in use as the Sacristy), and the church’s porch was added in the C20.

Since 1923 the church has been in the care of The Benedictine Order at Belmont Abbey, and they oversaw an internal re-ordering in the 1930s. In the 1970s the presbytery was altered by the then priest Father Wilfrid Chadwick who opened up the ground floor, combining the two reception rooms either side of the front door allowing them to be used as a parish room. In the early-C21 further alterations were carried out to the presbytery creating a flat for the priest upstairs and converting more of the ground floor for parish use. The front door, which had been a window, was re-instated at this time.

Reasons for Listing

The Roman Catholic Church St Thomas of Hereford and attached presbytery, Weobley is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* the church has the very modest architectural character of the earliest post-Reformation Catholic churches; this reflects caution in public worship given the recent necessity to conceal practice of the faith in England;
* internally the church reflects Catholic liturgical practices and is furnished with C20 oak Arts and Crafts fittings which are characteristic of the faith;
* the presbytery is a handsome early-C19 house, of the respectable style and quality that would be associated with a community leader.

Historic interest:

* the church, presbytery and former school room are a self-contained group which reinforce each other’s individual interest;
* the church is a good example of an early post-Reformation Catholic place of worship in a remote rural area close to the estate of the Catholic family who funded the building.

External Links

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