St Osmund's Church, Salisbury

St Osmund's Church
St Osmund's Church
	St Osmund's Church St Osmund's Church
	51°03′53″N 1°47′37″W / 51.0646°N 1.7937°W
OS grid reference	SU145294
Location	Salisbury
Country	United Kingdom
Denomination	Roman Catholic
Website	salisburycatholics.org
History
Status	Parish church
Founder(s)	John Lambert
Dedication	Saint Osmund
Consecrated	6 September 1848
Architecture
Functional status	Active
Heritage designation	Grade II listed
Architect(s)	Augustus Pugin; Edward Doran Webb
Style	Gothic Revival
Groundbreaking	8 April 1847
Administration
Province	Birmingham
Diocese	Clifton
Deanery	St Edith of Wilton
Parish	Holy Redeemer & St Osmund
Listed Building – Grade II*
Official name	Church of St Osmund (Roman Catholic)
Designated	28 February 1952
Reference no.	1241985

St Osmund's Church is a Roman Catholic church in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. It was designed by Augustus Pugin in the Gothic Revival style and built in 1847–1848. It is on Exeter Street, opposite Bishop Wordsworth's School, in the city centre. It is a Grade II listed building.

History

Background

After the Reformation, the Catholic community in Salisbury celebrated mass in a house on Cathedral Close owned by Baron Arundell of Wardour. In the early 1800s, the Arundells left the area. In 1811, a former inn, the World's End Inn on St Martin's Lane, was bought so that a small chapel could be built there.^[3]

Construction

In the 1840s, the chapel was too small to accommodate the increasing Catholic population of the city. John Lambert (1815–1892), later the first Catholic mayor of Salisbury, bought the site for the current church and presbytery, and commissioned Augustus Pugin to design the church; Pugin had converted to Catholicism in 1835 and had previously lived in Salisbury for some years. On 8 April 1847, the foundation stone was laid by Bishop William Ullathorne, the Vicar Apostolic of the Western District. On 6 September 1848, the church was consecrated.^[3]

Description

The church is built of flint and stone, and originally had a chancel, nave and south aisle, and a south-west tower with a pyramidal roof. Enlargement of the church in 1894 was designed by Edward Doran Webb: a gabled north aisle was added and the south aisle altered.^[3]^[4]

The altars were designed by Pugin.^[4] In 1850, stained glass designed by Pugin and made by Hardman & Co. was installed in the church.^[1] In the 1980s, the walls in the chancel were repainted according to the original Pugin design. In 1982, stained glass was installed, showing the Martyrs of England and Wales.^[3]

Nikolaus Pevsner wrote in 1963 that the church is "Really of no architectural interest inside or out".^[5] Julian Orbach, revising Pevsner's volume in 2021, prefers to describe the church as "plain rather than inspiring".^[4]

A church school was built in 1867 on the north part of the site, in matching flint and stone, to designs by Pugin's son E. W. Pugin.^[4] Now used as the church hall, it too is Grade II listed.^[6]

Parish and services

St Osmund's Church is one of two churches in the titular parish of St Osmund's, the other being St Gregory and the English Martyrs Church on St Gregory's Avenue. St Osmund's has four Sunday masses at 9:00, 11:00, and 18:00, with an Ordinariate Mass at 12:15pm. St Gregory's has a Saturday Vigil Mass at 18.00 and a Sunday Mass at 9:00am.^[7] There are also occasional masses at the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, Downton.

References

^ ^a ^b Historic England. "Church of St Osmund (1241985)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
^ "Parishes". Clifton Diocese. Retrieved 9 February 2024.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Salisbury – St Osmund". Taking Stock. Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Orbach, Julian; Pevsner, Nikolaus; Cherry, Bridget (2021). Wiltshire. The Buildings Of England. New Haven, US and London: Yale University Press. p. 596. ISBN 978-0-300-25120-3. OCLC 1201298091.
^ Pevsner, Nikolaus; Cherry, Bridget (revision) (1975) [1963]. Wiltshire. The Buildings of England (2nd ed.). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. p. 439. ISBN 0-14-0710-26-4.
^ Historic England. "St Osmund's Church School (1355792)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 7 May 2023.
^ "Churches of St Gregory & St Osmund". Parish of St Osmund. Retrieved 23 March 2024.

External links

Media related to St Osmund's Church, Salisbury at Wikimedia Commons

Official website
Crittall, Elizabeth, ed. (1962). "Salisbury: Roman Catholicism". A History of the County of Wiltshire, Volume 6. Victoria County History. University of London. pp. 155–156. Retrieved 7 May 2023 – via British History Online.