 St Osmund's Church 2005 |
The Salisbury area had a strong recusant tradition. For many years there was a secret Roman Catholic chapel in the manor house of the Webb family at Odstock, and from about 1765 there was a Catholic presence in the centre of Salisbury. Mass, at that time, was said at Mrs Arundell’s house at the end of Rosemary Lane in the Cathedral Close. Then it was said in the attic of a house in St Thomas’s Square; briefly in a house by the north gate of the Close until the Dean and Chapter objected, then in Chapel House on Brown Street from 1803, and then, from 1812, in a more permanent chapel on the upper floor of a building in St Martin's Lane at the top of St Anne’s Street (this is now part of Salisbury College). | |
It was in St Martin’s Lane, in, what was described as, the ‘miserable room which served as a chapel for the Catholics of Salisbury’, that on 6 June 1835 Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, the leader of the nineteenth century Gothic Revival,was received into the Roman Catholic Church. He had become involved with Salisbury’s Catholics shortly after moving to Salisbury, and had undertaken some improvement to their little chapel. By 24 March 1835 he had finished a new altar and in early June he started altering and painting the chancel, all of which was finished by the day he was ‘received into [the] Holy Catholic church’.
Pugin’s stay in Salisbury was short, though he made many friends whilst he was there. John Lambert (1815-92) was one of these, a Catholic of some distinction who became mayor of Salisbury in 1854 and a Privy Councillor in 1885. As Catholic confidence grew there emerged a desire for a new and much grander chapel than the simple affair in St Martin’s Lane and, in 1846, Pugin was asked to produce drawings for a chapel that would be erected on a piece of land on Exeter Street. This was to be the gift of two laymen; Lambert would finance the building and another local Catholic, John Peniston, would provide the land.
Interior: 19th Century |
The site on Exeter Street was not only immediately outside the Cathedral Close, but also almost in line with the Cathedral’s eastern end. The Cathedral held the shrine of St Osmund, so Salisbury’s Catholics were determined to recapture the saint, and dedicate their church to him. | |
The humble Catholic chapel was to replace the Cathedral as the true symbol of Catholicism.
The Rev. Dr Ullathorne Vicar-Apostolic of the Western District, laid the foundation stone on 8 April 1847. In a somewhat propagandist report, which was perhaps written or inspired by Lambert, the Salisbury Journal reported how ‘numerous clergy’ celebrated the event which was enhanced by ‘an able choir’ and the presence of local dignitaries, including Lord Arundel the Catholic peer, who laid the second stone. A simple flint church with ashlar stone dressings started to rise up: chancel, nave, south aisle, chapel, south western tower topped by a simple low broached spire and a sacristy beyond the eastern end of the south aisle with an organ gallery above. All in a style that the Salisbury Journal described as fourteenth-century ‘decorated’, and the Builder, in a less gushing report, referred to as an ‘Early Decorated style’ Pugin only visited the site once, on 14 October 1847, presumably because he had complete faith in the builder and work was progressing without problems.
| On 2 September 1848 the Salisbury Journal announced that the Rt. Rev Bishop Hendren would consecrate the church on Wednesday 6 September. It would then be opened with a solemn Mass of dedication on 7 September at 10.30 am. There would be Vespers and Benediction in the evening. The Mass would be sung in plain chant of St. Gregory and while admission was free, those who wished to attend would require a ticket because demand for seats was expected to exceed the supply. The resulting building is both beautiful and simple. Despite its limited size, the proportions are well balanced, the materials simple and the overall effect, one of beauty. |
Interior 20th Century Pre-Vatican II |
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Or as Trappes-Lomax put it: "In spite of its meagreness, St Osmund’s has a certain charm - the charm of the inexpensive miniature’. The ‘impression given is of dignified poverty’".
Interior 2005 Photo Bob Daniels |
Outside, the simple flint and stone was elaborated by a statue of St Osmund that stands in a niche above the western door. Inside, an oak screen topped by depictions of the crucifixion, Mary and John separated the chancel and nave. The chancel walls were richly decorated, the ceiling painted and guilded, and the floor paved with encaustic tiles. A low stone pulpit, much like a reading desk, stood to the left of the chancel arch, and was decorated with a carving of the lamb while above was a niche with a statue of Mary and the infant Jesus. The Lady Chapel was separated from the aisle by an oak screen, there was stained glass depicting the annunciation and furniture which Pugin designed. | |
The walls were decorated with azure blue representing perfection and fleur de lys, or white lilies, for purity and innocence. The nave and aisle were fitted out with low benches with space for about 300 and the Builder estimated the cost at between £2000 and £3000.
Some of the windows were fitted with stained glass that was designed by Pugin and made by his friend John Hardman of Birmingham. The Salisbury Journal described the glass as 'unsurpassed by any modern glass that we have seen'
The eastern window depicts St Osmund with the patron saints of the adjacent Anglican churches on either side; St Thomas of Canterbury on the right and St Martin on the left: a clear reflection of competition between the different denominations over ownership of the saints.
The Salisbury Journal described the whole composition as 'small and unpretending', but it: 'bespeaks itself as the production of one thoroughly conversant with the principles of Christian art; and we may add, that amongst the many beautiful edifices with which the skill and ability of Pugin has adorned our country, none more sustains his deserved celebrity than does the church of St Osmund, at Salisbury.'
Many changes have been made since. The western window was set with stained glass in 1893 and E Doran Webb (1843-1913) added a north aisle in 1894. The style is largely sympathetic to Pugin’s original work, though the aisle projects slightly beyond the nave at the western end. More importantly, the south arcade and south wall were rebuilt and the church extended: Pugin’s two plain columns and the three bay south arcade was replaced by four bays and three more elaborate columns to match those Doran Webb intended for the north arcade.
At some stage the oak screens have been removed and, following Vatican II (started 1963), a second wooden altar has been erected at the eastern end of the nave. Pugin's pulpit is no more, and the font has been relocated. The chancel walls were whitewashed in the 1960s but repainted again in the 1980s, largely as a copy of the original. Stained glass commemorating the forty English Martyrs has been installed in the northern aisle.
Despite one hundred and fifty years usage the church remains as a somewhat extended version of what Pugin intended: a statement of mid-nineteenth century Roman Catholicism within an area the Anglicans would have liked to dominate: it provided a true Roman Catholic alternative to the Protestant Cathedral.
Author JOHN ELLIOTT parishioner
Sources:
On Roman Catholicism see J Anthony Williams, Recusancy in Wiltshire (1968).
Michael Trappes-Lomax, Pugin: a Medieval Victorian (1932), p 59.
Salisbury Journal 10 April 1847, p 4; 2 September p 4 and 9 September p 3, 1848
Tablet 17 April 1847, p 247.
Builder 7 October 1848, p 490.
Michael Trappes-Lomax, Pugin: a Medieval Victorian (1932), p 52.