Abbey Church of St Gregory the Great, Downside Abbey

Heritage listing

Details Abbey church and minor basilica of St Gregory the Great and the north cloister of the monastery, designed by the architectural practice Dunn and Hansom. It was built between 1879 and 1938, with the later phases of work by architects Thomas Garner, Frederick Walters, and Sir Giles Gilbert Scott; it remains unfinished to the west end. In the C13 French-Gothic style, with later phases in the Early-English, Decorated, and Perpendicular styles. Stained glass by Hardman and Co; Lavers, Barraud, & Westlake; and Ninian Comper. Architectural carving and fixtures and fittings by Alfred B Wall of Cheltenham, Ninian Comper, Ferdinand Stuflesser, and Edward Carter Preston among others. MATERIALS: built of local lias stone and faced with Bath-stone ashlar. The roof is covered with plain clay tiles; the east-end chapels are roofed in copper sheeting. The principal floors are paved in stone. One, two, three, and four-light windows with varied tracery. PLAN: a cruciform and aisled planform comprising the eight-bay nave with passage aisles, the crossing, north and south transepts, seven-bay choir, ambulatory, radiating chapels and a crypt beneath the east end. The south transept is screened from the body of the church and forms part of the north cloister of the monastery with the organ and the galleried chapels to the west and east, above. To the south of the transept is the tower. To the north is the sacristy. EXTERIOR: the ‘temporary’ west front is built of coursed lias stone, in a simplified Perpendicular style, with three, tall lancet windows above a relieving Romanesque arch to the west door. There is a two-light window to the gable. The elevation is framed by pilasters with offsets, and to either side are lean-to aisles, with a domestic-scale lean-to porch to the north aisl

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.