Newmarket Church

The original Catholic Church, built in the 1960's in a simple Romanesque style, has a pleasing simple austerity.  The brief was to remove the original high altar located in the apse and construct a new altar, lectern and font which could facilitate a more direct relationship between the officiating priest and the congregation.  The design picks up on the simple austerity of the original building and carries forward this theme of a pure clarity of form to emphasise the beauty in the materials used.   Limestone, oak, and cast glass have been carefully chosen and detailed in a way which celebrates the rich texture and lustre inherent in those natural materials, which is enhanced by the pure simple spaces within which they are set. 

The local limestone was cut to reveal the natural horizontal bedding courses to the vertical face, the glass lectern and font were cast by a local glass artist, and the furniture was designed by the architect to continue the theme of simple purity of form and rich materiality.