St Filumena

Introduction

St Filumena in Caverswall is a Grade II listed church, first listed on 08-Aug-1986. The church was built in 1863-4 by Gilbert Blount. It is a small, aisleless Gothic Revival church of the 1860s.

History

Catholics in Caverswall were served by itinerant missioners until 1811, when Benedictine nuns from Ghent settled at Caverswall Castle and opened a school. The foundation stone was laid by Bishop Ullathorne on the Thursday in Easter Week, 1863. The church was opened on 28 January 1864. Much embellishment took place in 1923, including the addition of a high altar reredos, stone panelling in the sanctuary, and iron railings around the baptistery.

The church has rock-faced, coursed stonework; banded tiled roof; verge parapets with buttressed bellcote at west end; nave (south porch) and chancel. The reredos of 1923 with mosaic and opus sectile angel figures is a fine termination to the sanctuary.

Architecture and furnishings

The nave features four widely spaced lancet windows in a 1:3 arrangement flanking a gabled porch with a moulded pointed arch. The west end has a slight central break with a two-light pointed west window above the west door, and a figure in a pointed niche beneath the bellcote. The chancel is lower and angle buttressed, with a single window of two lights and plate tracery.

The nave is covered by an arch-braced collar roof. The chancel roof is four-sided and divided into painted rectangular panels. A gallery occupies the west end of the interior. The walls are plastered and painted off-white, with blue window reveals and a red sanctuary end wall, replacing an earlier stencil decoration scheme.