St. Francis and St. Anthony Friary

Introduction

The building was opened in November 1959, built by James Longley and Co of Crawley.

History

The Capuchins had resided in Crawley since the late 1850s, and their first church and buildings were completed in 1861 on land donated by Francis Scawen Blunt. The agreed scheme was for a building orientated at right angles to the old church with the sanctuary built over its nave, incorporating older tombs into the new foundations, which are marked by plaques. The building was altered in 1995. Eucharistic Ministers take Holy Communion to parishioners who are ill or otherwise unable to attend Mass.

Architecture and furnishings

The interior features a long nave with a hexagonal patterned ceiling of painted pre-cast concrete and plain washed aisle arches. A C19 marble-lined chapel of St Anthony of Padua, originally from Mrs Alfred Montgomery's Naples villa, was installed in the Victorian friary church in the 1860s and reinstated in the new church in 1959. Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel designed the church, which was built between 1955 and 1959 for a Capuchin Friary. The interior retains Goodhart-Rendel's leaded lights, a north-western baptistery, and joinery including the vestibule screen, gallery, and pews.

A more than life-sized alabaster effigy of Francis Scawen Blunt, who died in 1872, was carved by his brother Wilfred. The interior was altered by removing the arch between nave and crossing, inserting a concealed steel support, and placing a glazed screen with concrete cross beam between sanctuary and crossing. The alterations caused the loss of part of Goodhart-Rendel's ceiling and his designed sanctuary altar, altar rails, and flooring.