Sacred Heart & St Catherine of Alexandria, Droitwich Spa
Sacred Heart & St Catherine of Alexandria, Droitwich Spa
The Church of the Sacred Heart and St Catherine of Alexandria on Worcester Road, Droitwich Spa, is a Grade II* Catholic church of 1919–21 by F. Barry Peacock, in the Archdiocese of Birmingham, renowned for its Ravenna-inspired Venetian glass mosaics.
- Location
- Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire
- Country
- England
- County
- Worcestershire
- City / town
- Droitwich Spa
- Address
- Worcester Road, Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire, WR9 8AZ
- Postcode
- WR9 8AZ
- Built
- Opened 1921; mosaics 1922–32, with later work
- Architect
- Frank Barry Peacock; mosaics designed by Gabriel Pippet, executed by Maurice Josey and Fred Oates
- Denomination
- Catholic Church
- Dedication
- Sacred Heart and Catherine
- Diocese
- Birmingham
- Parish
- Sacred Heart and St Catherine of Alexandria, Droitwich
- Grade
- II*
- Style
- Basilican / Byzantine Revival
- Materials
- Brick basilica with mosaic-clad interior of Venetian smalti above marble; Cosmatesque chapel floors
- Grid reference
- SO 899 630
- Opening hours
- Open 8am to 6pm. Worship times vary and are shown on the church website
- Access
- Accessible toilets nearby. Level access to the main areas
Overview
Historic England lists the church (1415605, Grade II*, 11 December 2013). Walter Loveridge Hodgkinson commissioned the building; it opened by November 1921. The plan is basilican: nave and side aisles of eight bays, a choir gallery over a west narthex, an eastern apse, an apsidal baptistery, flanking apsed chapels, and a south-western tower with pyramidal roof. The west doorway tympanum shows Christ enthroned between St Catherine and St Richard; a Lombardic frieze and rose window complete the gable.
Gabriel Pippet designed the mosaics after study in Ravenna, Florence and Rome with Hodgkinson and Peacock. Maurice Josey, who had worked at Westminster Cathedral, and the young Fred Oates laid about eight and a half tons of quarter-inch Venetian smalti from 1922, most work complete by 1932. The church is often called “England’s Ravenna.” The St Catherine chapel commemorates Catherine Hodgkinson. A later chapel to St Michael Garicoïts has mosaics finished in 1963. Mosaic restoration completed in 2025 uncovered Cosmatesque floors in the side chapels.