St. Augustine

Introduction

The present church is a plain interwar brick building in the Gothic style, notably old-fashioned for its date, constructed by the Augustinian Recollect Fathers.

History

In 1934 Bishop Barrett placed the Seaton mission under the care of the Augustinian Recollect Fathers. The foundation stone of the new building was laid in July 1937. The church was finally consecrated in 1981.

Architecture and furnishings

The church exterior is faced with red brick with Bath stone copings and window surrounds, and roof coverings of Welsh slate, in a simplified Gothic style. The building consists of an aisleless rectangular nave with a small projecting west porch and a short sanctuary. The flat-roofed brick porch has a triple arched opening with stepped, pointed arches on clustered stone columns. Above the porch is a large three-light pointed window with 'Y' tracery.

The side walls of the church are divided into six bays by stepped brick buttresses whose stone caps rise above the roof parapet. In the bays are two-light pointed windows with 'Y' tracery. The interior has a parquet floor, plain plastered walls and an open timber roof with principal rafters braced down onto pilaster-strips between the windows. The nave windows are clear glazed.

At the east end is a pointed arch with jamb-shafts opening into the small sanctuary. The east and west windows have modern stained glass in the Buckfast tradition. The interior has been reordered and steps built west of the sanctuary arch for a nave altar.