Heritage Now #10

CASEWORK

DOUAI ABBEY, UPPER WOOLHAMPTON, BERKS

phasised by a new screen and glazing-in. Blee was not asked to include any confessionals and that function is presently performed in the monastic buildings themselves. We re-visted the site in July and a compromise is expected.

ABOVE: Douai Abbey − the drama of contrast.

BELOW: Smyrna Chapel Llangefni – now in safe hands.

Douai is one of the most powerful examples since the war of an uncompromising extension to a Gothic church − made even so by the fact that the Gothic is so late. The image is taken from the choir designed by J. Arnold Crush that was built between 1928 and 1933. His client was the Catholic Benedictine community of monks that had been thrown out of anti-clerical France just a few decades before. But plans ground to a halt with only the choir and its aisles and the Lady Chapel finished and matters stayed that way for some time. Then the late Michael Blee was com missioned in 1989 to complete a truncated nave which, with a spectacular disregard for the lan guage of Gothic, even if some nod to its spirit, he did with a new polygonal top-lit space where the great concrete passing rafters are trenched into massive concrete revetments. The result is more shotgun marriage than gentle fusion but Blee’s work has its own forceful presence which we felt deserved to partake in the Grade II* listing that was granted to Crush’s work in 1983, barely 50 years after construction (the listing description remains unrevised and does not mention Blee at all). Given the elemental importance of symmetry in the Blee design we had to oppose a scheme to create an asymmetrical confessional room on one side of the entrance, which would be further em

LLANGEFNI, ANGLESEY, FORMER SMYRNA CHAPEL

Smyrna (originating of 1840 but a rebuild of 1903) is one Welsh chapel that has fallen into benign hands. Two young Welshmen and their families have returned to their native Anglesey (Ynys

15

HERITAGE NOW (03/2024) WINTER 2024