Our Lady of Czestochowa and St Casimir

Introduction

The church has been the home of the Polish Roman Catholic Mission since 1930. The chapel and south wing were begun in 1865 to designs by Finch Hill and Paraive, built by Dove brothers, and completed in 1867.

Architecture and furnishings

The building is of white brick with a stone facade, and the gabled west front is faced in Kentish rag with ashlar dressings. The chapel comprises a tall rectangular nave with an organ gallery at the west end, internally lined with limestone and an open timber roof. The reredos was designed by Alexander Payne and carved in Caen stone by Martyn and Emms of Cheltenham, installed in 1879. Stained glass in the clerestory and East window dates from 1952-3 by Stanley Higgins.

A bronze bas-relief of the Stations of the Cross by J.Z. Henelt dates from 1945. The Gothic style church has a pointed arch porch above a recessed entrance with a large perpendicular window above, flanked by staircase towers, buttressed and pinnacled. The wings are faced in ashlar, three storeys plus attic and basement, with 5-light mullioned windows, those to left with cusped heads. The south wall is pierced by arched openings giving access to a low-ceilinged side chapel, originally a school room.