Sacred Heart Church is a Roman Catholic church that serves as the parish church of St Ives, Cambridgeshire

St Ives, Cambridgeshire

St Ives is a market town in Cambridgeshire, England, around north-west of the city of Cambridge and north of London. It lies within the historic county boundaries of Huntingdonshire.-History:...

. It was originally designed and built by Augustus Pugin

Augustus Pugin

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin was an English architect, designer, and theorist of design, now best remembered for his work in the Gothic Revival style, particularly churches and the Palace of Westminster. Pugin was the father of E. W...

 in Cambridge as St Andrew's Church, but was dismantled in 1902 and transported by barge to St Ives.

History

By the end of the 19th century, enough Catholics had begun to return to St Ives to warrant the creation of a parish church. Initially, the parish was served by a small wooden building in East Street, but in 1902 a local businessman George Pauling purchased St Andrew's Church in Cambridge for £1000 and had it moved to St Ives. St Andrew's had been built in 1843 by Pugin to serve as Cambridge's parish church, but was superseded in 1890 by Our Lady and the English Martyrs Church

Our Lady and the English Martyrs Church

Our Lady and the English Martyrs is a Catholic parish church located at the junction of Hills Road and Lensfield Road in south east Cambridge, England...

. St Andrew's was dismantled, transported by barge and rebuilt in St Ives in less than five months. The new church was dedicated to the Sacred Heart

Sacred Heart

The Sacred Heart is one of the most famous religious devotions to Jesus' physical heart as the representation of His divine love for Humanity....

.

Architecture

Pugin was reportedly dissatisfied with the church, saying he "wished the earth would open and swallow that building". The church remains almost identical to its original construction, apart from reconstruction of the porch, and the repositioning of the font

Baptismal font

A baptismal font is an article of church furniture or a fixture used for the baptism of children and adults.-Aspersion and affusion fonts:...

. Additional windows and a clerestory

Clerestory

Clerestory is an architectural term that historically denoted an upper level of a Roman basilica or of the nave of a Romanesque or Gothic church, the walls of which rise above the rooflines of the lower aisles and are pierced with windows. In modern usage, clerestory refers to any high windows...

 were added to give more light, and the rood screen

Rood screen

The rood screen is a common feature in late medieval church architecture. It is typically an ornate partition between the chancel and nave, of more or less open tracery constructed of wood, stone, or wrought iron...

 was also removed. Unusually, the church sanctuary faces north west, rather than east.

Pugin's high altar is made from Caen stone

Caen stone

Caen stone or Pierre de Caen, is a light creamy-yellow Jurassic limestone quarried in northwestern France near the city of Caen.The limestone is a fine grained oolitic limestone formed in shallow water lagoons in the Bathonian Age about 167 million years ago...

 and depicts the Lamb surrounded by the symbols of the Four Evangelists

Four Evangelists

In Christian tradition the Four Evangelists are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the authors attributed with the creation of the four Gospel accounts in the New Testament that bear the following titles:*Gospel according to Matthew*Gospel according to Mark...

, between quarterfoils of winged angels. The altar was restored in 2002. The stained glass, also designed by Pugin, features the Madonna and Child, St Andrew and St Felix, patron of the diocese. Further windows have been added, including some to replace those damaged in 1906.

Parish priests

• Rev. John Arendzen (1900–1903)
• Rev. Constantine Ketterer (1903–1909)
• Rev. James Purcell (1909–1942)
• Rev. Ethelbert Payne (1942–1950)
• Rev. Stephen Doupe (1950–1970)
• Rev. Bernard Nesden (1970–1977)
• Rev. John Drury (1977–1981)
• Rev. Raymond Kerby (1981–2001)
• Rev. Paul Maddison (2001–2010)
• Rev. Edward Trędota (2010-present)