St Thomas
Brentwood, Essex
There has been a church of St Thomas of Canterbury in Brentwood since the 13th century, and we are very much at the heart of the community.
The new Brentwood Cathedral was dedicated by Cardinal Hume on May 31st 1991. The donors chose to remain anonymous and the money was given solely for this purpose.
The architect Quinlan Terry was commissioned to build the new church in the Classical style. He took his inspiration from the early Italian Renaissance crossed with the English baroque of Sir Christopher Wren. This, it was felt, would be appropriate for the town and its conservation area, but above all it would provide the right space and light for the liturgy to be celebrated. Work began in 1989 and was completed two years later. The north elevation consists of nine bays each divided by Doric pilasters. This is broken by a huge half circular portico, which was inspired by a similar one at St Pauls. Seen above with Clergy House in the background we get an idea of the scale of the portico. A conscious decision was taken to retain part of the Gothic revival church of 1861 alongside the new classical cathedral.
The east elevation juxtaposes the old and the new, linking them through both the scale of the 1991 building and the sympathetic use of ragstone and Welsh slate roof tiles. All the classical architectural orders are represented in the interior. There are four giant Doric pilasters, the Tuscan arcade of arches, the Ionic pilasters of the Palladian windows in the east and west aisles, the Corinthian and Composite influences evident on the cathedral and the organ case.
While the interior of the cathedral has a deliberately restrained feeling to it, richness is to be found in the ceiling. The Roman key pattern and the double guilloche pattern, picked out in gold leaf, are dominant here. All the round headed windows are in the classical Wren style, with clear leaded lights of hand made glass. With clear windows on all four sides, the cathedral is flooded with light at any time of the day. This, together with the white walls and stone floor, combine to give a translucent effect which uplifts the spirit and conveys its own sense of the presence of God.