St Mary of the Angels Church is located to the south of the village of Brownshill in the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

Chalford Chalford is a large village in the Frome Valley of the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England. It is to the southeast of Stroud about upstream. It gives its name to Chalford parish, which covers the villages of Chalford, Chalford Hill, Fran ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, England. It is a redundant

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

church

vested In law, vesting is the point in time when the rights and interests arising from legal ownership of a property is acquired by some person. Vesting creates an immediately secured right of present or future deployment. One has a vested right to an ...

in the

Friends of Friendless Churches Friends of Friendless Churches is a registered charity formed in 1957, active in England and Wales, which campaigns for and rescues redundant historic places of worship threatened by demolition, decay, or inappropriate conversion. As of April ...

. The church is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...

as a designated Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

The church was constructed between 1930 and 1937 and designed by W. D. Caröe. David Verey and Alan Brooks, in their ''Gloucester 1'' volume of Pevsner's ''

Buildings of England The Pevsner Architectural Guides are a series of guide books to the architecture of Great Britain and Ireland. Begun in the 1940s by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the 46 volumes of the original Buildings of England series were publish ...

'', describe it as a "late and very distinctive" example of his work. It was built to serve a religious community called Templewood. This had been created in 1927 by Bertha Kessler and Katherine Hudson. Members of the

First Aid Nursing Yeomanry The First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (Princess Royal's Volunteer Corps) (FANY (PRVC)) is a British independent all-female registered charity formed in 1907 and active in both nursing and intelligence work during the World Wars. Its members wear a mili ...

in the First World War and observing the mental trauma suffered by servicemen in the conflict, Kessler and Hudson determined to give spiritual healing to people suffering from mental illness. St Mary's was built as a chapel to serve the community, both of the nurses giving £1,000 towards it. Stained glass windows were added the following year. In 1951 the community was made a Tertiary Chapter of the

Dominican Order The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...

. The chapel continued in daily use by the community until 2006. It was

in the Friends of Friendless Churches during 2010, being the first Roman Catholic church to be accepted by the charity, and the most modern church to come into their care.

Architecture

Exterior

St Mary's is constructed in

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

rubble Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture; undressed especially as a filling-in. Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as 'brash' (compare cornbrash)."Rubble" def. 2., "Brash n. 2. def. 1. ''Oxford English Dictionar ...

and

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

, with Cotswold stone slate roofs, and a timber- shingled

bellcote A bellcote, bell-cote or bell-cot is a small framework and shelter for one or more bells. Bellcotes are most common in church architecture but are also seen on institutions such as schools. The bellcote may be carried on brackets projecting from ...

. Its architectural style is Romanesque, although Verey and Brooks detect "a hint of

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

" at the church's western end. It is rectangular in plan, with an

apsidal In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a sa ...

. On the north side is a

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

with a

confessional A confessional is a box, cabinet, booth, or stall in which the priest in some Christian churches sits to hear the confessions of penitents. It is the usual venue for the sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Churches, but sim ...

, and a porch in the angle between the vestry and the church. The west end is topped by a truncated round arch, and it contains a doorway with a round arch, above which is a rectangular window. Along the south side of the church are five bays, each containing a narrow round-headed window, and a door towards the east end. The north side has similar windows, a door towards the west, and the porch and vestry. At the east end is a full

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

. A planned house for the resident priest, which was to stand adjacent to the church, was not built.

Interior

The interior of the church is simple. At the west end is a gallery, its panels decorated with diamond-shaped carving. The

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

is floored with parquet, and with

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, a ...

tiles. Between the nave and the sanctuary is a large

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

-type arch, decorated with Romanesque chevrons. In the sanctuary is a stone altar table. Three of the windows contain stained glass depicting the founders of the community and a benefactor. Their design is attributed to

Douglas Strachan Douglas Strachan (26 May 1875, Aberdeen, Scotland – 20 November 1950) is considered the most significant Scottish designer of stained glass windows in the 20th century. He is best known for his windows at the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherl ...

. Under the central window is a panel containing gold

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

. Between the doors leading to the vestry and the confessional is a

niche Niche may refer to: Science *Developmental niche, a concept for understanding the cultural context of child development *Ecological niche, a term describing the relational position of an organism's species *Niche differentiation, in ecology, the ...

. The fittings to the doors are in

Arts and Crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

style. Adjacent to each entrance door is a

holy water stoup A holy water font or stoup is a vessel containing holy water which is generally placed near the entrance of a church. It is often placed at the base of a crucifix or religious representation. It is used in the Catholic Church, Anglican Churches ...

Illustrations

More information and illustrations can be found using the External Link to Friends of Friendless Churches.

References

Sources

External links

Friends of Friendless Churches: St Mary of the Angels, Brownshill
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brownshill, St Mary of the Angels Church Grade II listed churches in Gloucestershire Romanesque Revival church buildings in England Churches preserved by the Friends of Friendless Churches Roman Catholic churches in Gloucestershire Buildings by W. D. Caröe