Church of St Joan of Arc Farnham, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

FARNHAM

884/0/10027 TILFORD ROAD 03-JUN-10 19 Church of St Joan of Arc

II Roman Catholic church, 1929-30 by John Edward Dixon-Spain in a modern Romanesque style.

Red brick, Portland stone and concrete construction with tiled roof.

PLAN: Basilican plan, nave flanked by north and south passage aisles. Blessed Sacrament Chapel to east of north aisle, Chapel of St Catherine and St Margaret and Baptistry to the west of north and south aisles respectively. Narthex to west end and campanile to the south-east.

EXTERIOR: The church has a steeply pitched roof over the nave and chancel, with flat-roofed aisles. The single storey flat-roofed narthex has a stone coping at the wall head and two shallow steps lead to a central doorway with a classical stone surround, surmounted by a statue of St Joan of Arc by the artist Roger de Villiers. An access ramp has been installed to the left of the doorway. To either side of the door is a window with moulded stone surround, glazed with small leaded bulls-eyes. In the west wall is a large semi-circular headed stained-glass west window. Set back from the narthex are the chapel of St Catherine and St Margaret to the north, and the baptistery to the south. The chapel and the baptistery are flat-roofed and square in plan with a stone cornice at the wall head; the corners are treated as a series of receding pilaster strips. In each face is a single blind arch with a leaded oculus.

The Blessed Sacrament Chapel (originally the Lady Chapel) is expressed as a series of flat-roofed rectangular forms of slightly varying height. The aisle and chapel have stone coping at the wall head. To the far east, a flat-roofed single-storey sacristy connects the church to the neo-Georgian presbytery. Along side the south aisle is an open-arcaded campanile with pyramidal roof. Adjacent to this is a two-storey gable-ended projecting wing with a central doorway, above which is a niche with a statue of the Virgin and Child by parishioner, Miss Pauline de Almay. To the west is a courtyard space; enclosed by the flank wall of the hall built in 2008, known as St Joan's Centre.

The fenestration is simple with the single stained-glass window to the west end, and elsewhere clear leaded glass in semi-circular-headed, square-headed and circular windows.

The church is set back from the road; a lawn with an avenue of cherry trees leads to a hedged piazza at the west front of the church. The setting provides a formal, processional approach to the building.

INTERIOR: The church has a barrel-vaulted ceiling and plain arcading beneath semi-circular-headed clerestory windows. Blind arches reach over the sanctuary clerestory windows, cutting into the barrel vault. Original pine pews and parquet floors remain in situ. The aisles have flat ceilings and transverse arches springing from the arcade piers. Behind the altar is a large apsidal niche in with a crucifix, made by a local artist. Above the altar is a gilded baldacchino. The sanctuary floor is of Roman stone with a large porphyry star; however this is covered with carpet. The Blessed Sacrement Chapel has a flat ceiling with joists expressed in plaster and embellished at either end with gilded ionic scrolls. To the north, full height blind arcading is punctured by circular clerestory windows and barrel vaulted cells. The chapel's north passage aisle is created by transverse arched apertures connecting the cells through their supporting walls.

The Chapel of St Catherine and St Margaret has a groin-vaulted ceiling and is separated from the aisle by a hard-wood screen. The chapel retains its statuary, but it is now used as a repository. The former baptistery also has a groin vaulted ceiling and is separated from the aisle by a bronze screen. A door has been opened through the south wall into the glass lobby which connects the church to St Joan's Centre.

FIXTURES AND