Description

The following building shall be added to the list:-

TR 36 NW MARGATE CANTERBURY ROAD
Westgate-on-Sea

9/10003 St Augustine's College
and the Abbey School

- II

Convent, church, school and presbytery. Built between 1905 and 1915
by the architect F A Walters for the community of the Canonesses of
St Augustine who had been expelled from France under the anti-clerical
laws in 1904. Only the chapel and range attached to the west belong
to the best-quality phase of Walter's work which here extended over
a long period. Chapel by F A Walters 1910 in Early Decorated style.
Walls faced with roughcast with stone window surrounds, brick
dressings and slate roof. Cruciform in plan, comprising a nuns' choir
in the nave, transepts to serve as the public part of the chapel,
Sanctuary at crossing of nave, transepts and to the east beyond the
Sanctuary a Lady Chapel with an apsidal end. The nuns' choir contained
120 stalls. Ritual east front facing the road is symmetrical with
central tall 5-bay apse. Windows are double pointed lancets with
trefoils above in stone surrounds. Central blocked window with stone
statue in niche. Hipped aisle either side of apse with tall arched
opening with lancet and to west side of transepts 2 arched windows
with 2 lancets and trefoil above. Arched doorcases. 2 hipped side
chapels with double Caernarvon-arched windows each side of apse. Nave
has arched windows with triple lancets and trefoil above side windows.
South transept is gabled and of brick with cross-shaped saddlestone.
Immense roughcast arch incorporating 2 tall lancets and oval window
above. North transept has 3 small lancets and attached 1-storey
roughcast gabled structure with one 3-light window. West front has
tall brick turret with stone spirelet surmounted by iron cross.
Interior of church has nave with ribbed wooden barrel-vaulted ceiling
supported on elongated stone corbels, row of nuns' stalls with
trefoliated heads on south and north walls, octagonal carved pulpit
at north east end and tiled pavement. Chancel has elaborate stone
reredos with blank arcading at base, pierced screen above the whole
surmounted by statue of the Virgin Mary in architectural surround.
Attached to the west are the Abbey School Buildings and Presbytery of
1905-1907 extended to south in less distinguished but related style
between 1911 and 1915. Asymmetrical building in roughcast with brick
dressings, slate roof and roughcast chimney stacks. To the extreme
left is a 1-storey link block with slate roof and 3 dormers. 5 arched
windows separated by brick pilasters with stone coping. Attached to
the right is a 4-storey gable with 3 full height lancets with side
buttresses. The side lancets have elaborate blank niches. The central
one has on 3rd floor a 4-light casement. The 1st and 2nd floors have
arched surrounds with mullioned and transomed windows and trefoil
decoration. Arched doorcase with carved stone tympanum with statue.
To the right is a 2-storey wing with 2 tiers of attics with 2 gabled
3-light dormers at the top and 2 3-light flat roofed dormers below.
1st floor has 5 mullioned and transomed windows to 1st floor set in
arches and ground floor has arched windows with 2 lancets and circular
window above. Gable to end with 4-light window and tall tower with
hipped roof and slit windows. Projecting forward at the end is the
Presbytery, a 2-storey building of roughcast with slate roof and
roughcast chimneys. Front has 2 gable ends. 1st floor has 2 3-light
casements, ground floor has 4 mullioned and transomed casements. Later
and less significant ranges to rear of 1908-15.
The architect's youngest daughter joined the Community in 1907. In
1962 she became Mother Mary Joseph, the Reverend Mother Vicar of the
Canonesses of St Augustine in England.

Listing NGR: TR3224569672

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26551335

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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