St Thomas More, Bostall Park

Introduction

In 1936 Fr James Malone of Crayford built a temporary church at Bostall Park, Bexleyheath.

History

The church was consecrated on 21 July 2000. In August 1938 the first resident priest, Fr Owen McManus, arrived. In 1954 two semi-detached houses at 375 and 377 Long Lane were acquired for use as a presbytery. Between June 1979 and June 1980 architects Weal & Pozzoni Partnership built a presbytery within the church grounds and a parish hall.

In 1985 the sanctuary was reordered and a larger porch was added. The Blessed Carlo Acutis Youth Circle brings together young people for activities and discussions in the parish. The parish asks people to contact the parish priest before they contact the funeral director.

Architecture and furnishings

The church, built in 1951, uses reinforced concrete portal frames and red-brown bricks laid in Flemish bond above a dado area of stretcher bond. The plan is rectangular with an apsed east end and a southeast Lady Chapel. The Lady Chapel has a flat, panelled ceiling and a canted shallow recess at the east, with a plain timber altar and a statue of the Virgin with Child above. The porch houses a large copy of Tintoretto's mural of the Crucifixion, painted and presented by the architect and signed 'Glover'.

The west window shows St Thomas More and the Tower of London. The tabernacle stand is of white marble with an elaborately decorated metal door and the inscription 'sanguis martyrum semen ecclesiae'. The lectern and altar are of the same marble, with coloured marble panels on the altar frontal. The west front consists of the original gabled west elevation and the 1985 porch, whose pitched roof has flat roof extensions and brick kneelers echoing the main gable.

The porch has a glazed pediment above the doorway, flanked by pairs of pointed windows. The nave is divided into six bays by the portal frames. A gilded plaster dado rail appears to be a later addition. Two straight-headed windows to the porch would have originally continued the pointed windows above.

The five-sided sanctuary is lit by two windows in the outer bays. The Stations are large unframed reliefs. A carved timber crucifix hangs above the tabernacle stand. A piscina is set into the wall to the right of the tabernacle. On either side of the sanctuary are statues of St Thomas More and the Sacred Heart.