Presbytery to the Roman Catholic Church of St Saviour, Totland, Isle of Wight

Summary

Presbytery to the Roman Catholic Church of St Saviour, completed in 1923, designed by the Preston-based architect WC and JH Mangan for the Diocese of Portsmouth.

Description

Presbytery to the Roman Catholic Church of St Saviour, completed in 1923, designed by the Preston-based architect WC and JH Mangan for the Diocese of Portsmouth.

The pair of late-C20 single-storey pitched-roof brick garages* are not included in the listing.

MATERIALS: stretcher-bond brick building with brick and tile detailing, topped by hipped tile roofs and a brick stack

PLAN: the dwelling has a roughly L-shaped footprint, with an entrance porch on the west side.

EXTERIOR: the two-storey presbytery is on a raised plot and accessed from the driveway by a set of steps leading up to the single storey flat-roof west entrance porch. The ground-floor window openings consist of a range of single, double, triple and quadruple lights divided by brick mullions; the openings are topped by panels with oversized splayed brick and tile arches arranged in a sun-burst motif. The plainer first-floor openings are a variety of single, two and three-light casements. All of the windows contain late-C20 leaded uPVC double-glazed casements. The porch entrance arch has been infilled by a later uPVC door and is topped by a brick arch in a similar style to the window decoration. A double band of slightly projecting brick headers runs around the building at first-floor level, and includes, between the bands, tile quoins and a tile cruciform-motif above the main entrance. On the south elevation is a ground-floor box window. There is short brick wall attached to the lower rear (east) wing.

INTERIOR: the internal uPVC porch door appears to be a later replacement for the original entrance door. It leads through to a central hallway surrounded by rooms on three sides. There are six-panel doors with brass door furniture in simply moulded architraves throughout the building. On the ground floor most of the rooms and hallway contain skirting, picture rails and decorative plaster borders to the ceilings. There are also two early-C20 fireplaces. The study fireplace has been boarded-up; it retains its decorative timber surround. The living room has a grey-stone fireplace with a timber surround, mantel shelf and mirrored over mantle. There also some inbuilt wooden cupboards and shelving in the study and dining room. The central dogleg staircase has a rounded teak timber handrail with scroll end at the bottom, and a stick banister around the first-floor landing. Above the landing is a loft hatch. The first-floor rooms have skirting and in one of the bedrooms is a timber chimney surround with a boarded-up fireplace.

* Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that these aforementioned features are not of special architectural or historic interest. However, any works to these structures and/or features which have the potential to affect the character of the listed building as a building of special architectural or historic interest may still require Listed Building Consent (LBC) and this is a matter for the Local Planning Authority (LPA) to determine.

History

The Church of St Saviour is a Roman Catholic church located on land which formed part of Weston Manor estate in the late-C19. Weston Manor (Grade II*, National Heritage List for England (NHLE) entry 1209416) was built for Mary Ward and her husband William Ward, between 1869 and 1870 to designs by George Goldie; it included a purpose-built Catholic chapel. Mary’s ambition was to build a separate Roman-Catholic church in Totland; however, it was her eldest son Edmund Granville Ward who realised his mother’s ambition by leaving £5000 for this purpose upon his death in 1915. The site of the church was located to the north of the house, and near to an existing school (which later became St Saviour’s Roman Catholic school) and a Roman-Catholic burial ground. The Church of St Saviour was designed by the Preston-based architectural firm Mangan and Mangan and completed in 1923. The Buildings of England Isle of Wight volume comments that the form of the church was perhaps ‘based on that of a Romanesque basilica, but with overtones of Art Deco and strident individualism’ (Lloyd and Pevsner, 2006, pp145-146).

A presbytery was built at the same time as the church. It is understood to have also been designed by Mangan and Mangan. The footprint of the house has been almost entirely unaltered since it was first built. The porch entrance arch, formerly open, has been enclosed with uPVC glazed frame, and the doorway beyond has also been replaced by a later glazed uPVC doorway. Originally the building had leaded single-glazed casements; these have all been replaced with leaded double-glazed uPVC casements.

The architect Wilfrid Clarence Mangan (1884-1968) undertook several commissions for the Portsmouth diocese. At St Saviour’s, Wilfred worked with his brother James Henry Mangan (1876 -1935) who he was in partnership with from 1908 until 1926. Wilfred was amongst the most prolific inter-war and post-war Roman-Catholic church architects in England and several examples of his work appear on the National Heritage List for England, including Church of English Martyrs, Tilehurst Reading (Grade II, 1925-1926, NHLE entry 1456862) which he also designed with his brother.

Reasons for Listing

The presbytery to the Church of St Saviour, Totland Bay, Isle of Wight is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* its external brick design is well-detailed and compliments the design and detailing of the main church.

Historic interest:

* it was designed by the same architects of the church, WC Mangan, a notable early-C20 church architect who was responsible for several designs for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth, and his brother JH Mangan.

Group value:

* it has a strong architectural and functional relationship with the Church of St Saviour (Grade II), and a historic association with the nearby Weston Manor (Grade II*), the home of the church’s patrons.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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