The Presbytery of the Roman Catholic Church of St Mary

Summary

The presbytery of the adjoining Catholic church, constructed as a pair of houses in 1829.

Reasons for Designation

The presbytery of the Roman Catholic Church of St Mary, Thetford, constructed in 1829, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for the use of vernacular building materials, especially knapped flint and gault brick, which contribute and their contribution to regionally distinct architectural tradition.

Historic interest:

* as an early surviving example of a Catholic presbytery, completed in the same year as the 1829 Act of Emancipation.

Group value:

* for the strong visual and functional relationship with the attached Grade II* listed presbytery.

History

The Catholic Church of St Mary, Thetford, was constructed in 1826 and is the oldest freestanding Catholic place of worship still in use in the Diocese of East Anglia.

In 1829, in the same year as the Act of Emancipation that removed most of the remaining civil inequalities facing Catholic worship in England, a pair of houses was constructed adjoining the liturgical west end of the church.

The first edition Ordnance Survey maps of the 1880s show that the houses were among several ancillary structures associated with the church, including the school building and perhaps a third house at the south-west end of the church. Apart from the 1829 pair of buildings and the former school all the other structures were demolished in the second half of the C20.

By 2022 the ground floor of the houses had been combined to form a single property that functioned both as a Presbytery and a parish office. The two buildings were adapted to communicate on both floors, and to connect directly into the church building.

Details

The presbytery of the adjoining Catholic church, constructed as a pair of houses in 1829.

MATERIALS: the building is constructed of knapped flint with gault brick dressings and the pitched roofs are covered in Welsh slate.

PLAN: the domestic plan of each of the original two houses remains legible though the plan has now been adapted to create a single interconnected building.

EXTERIOR: the building is two storeys high and has a pitched roof with gables facing north-east and south-west where it connects to the church. There is a dentilated eaves cornice and two gault brick ridge stacks.

The north-west elevation faces Newtown and is three bays wide. There is a six-over-six timber sash window at each bay on both storeys except at the centre of the ground floor where there is an oak double-door beneath an arched fanlight. All of the window and door openings have rusticated brick surrounds.

The north-east elevation is gabled and all of the openings are arched with rusticated surrounds. there is a six-panel door with a glazed fanlight at the centre of the ground floor, and windows on each side. There are two sash windows at first floor, and one central window at the attic level. The ground floor windows are rectangular and the arches above them have been blocked-in.

The south-east elevation is more informal and is walled in a mixture of flints and field stones laid as random rubble. The three ground-floor and four first-floor windows are all of different shapes and sizes, timber framed, within surrounds of red brick. There is a small porch on the right-hand side. There are numerous scars and bricked-in features indicative of earlier openings or extensions that have since been removed.

INTERIOR: internally the houses retain their plans with separate staircases and entrance halls. Features of interest include surviving chimney breasts and fireplaces, joinery such as doors and window frames, and the staircases which have open strings, stick balusters, mahogany handrails and curtail steps with monkey tail newels. The attic of the end house has an exposed roof structure of common rafter construction and rough hewn structural members. There is a crude balustrade around the stairway that rises through the centre of the attic floor. There are wide pine floorboards on the attic floor and lath and plaster covers the walls.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

384785

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Websites
St Mary Thetford: historic building record, Architectural History Practice, 2020, accessed 13/05/2020 from https://taking-stock.org.uk/building/thetford-st-mary/

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