St. Francis of Assisi, Shefford

Introduction

Saint Francis of Assisi in Shefford, in the Diocese of Northampton, was designed by S J Nicholl of Kentish Town and opened in 1884. The SVP provided an Easter egg for every child at a local women's refuge and eggs for an Easter egg hunt. The parish supports The Need Project, which provides support to families across the Saint Peter's and Saint Francis parish areas.

Architecture and furnishings

The church is built of red brick with ashlar dressings and clay tile roofs, in C14 style. The interior has a reredos about 9 metres high in ornate High Gothic style, of carved stone including alabaster and marble, with figures of saints within crocketed canopied niches. The nave has half-height cedarwood panelling with carved and painted Stations of the Cross inset at intervals. There is a carved stone pulpit in High Gothic style in the SE corner of the nave.

The church has a High Gothic carved stone Lady Altar in the SW corner of the nave, with the Virgin and Child partly gilded. NE of the nave is an octagonal font with a crocketed wood spire cover. The chancel roof is infilled with painted and gilded angels and bosses. A slightly projecting three-stage bell-cote stands to the left of the nave gable, and its ground floor has a pointed arched doorway recessed within a higher pointed archway with traceried spandrels.

The bell-cote's central stage has a canopied niche with a figure of Saint Francis, flanked by single lights, and its gabled top stage, almost entirely in ashlar, has an ogee headed niche with a statue of the Virgin and Child. A gallery is located at the north end of the nave. Stained glass appears in the Lady Altar window and in windows on the west and east sides of the nave.