St Benedict's Church, Easterhouse (Gillespie, Kidd and Coia)

Job files, images and drawings related to project.

St Benedict's Church & Presbytery, Easterhouse stands on a site on Westerhouse Rd. At the time the church faced an which was slated for development as the 'Town Centre' of the area.

The Church has a seating accommodation of 800 in the spacious, clerestorey lit nave and should be noted that the design anticipated the liturgical trends which were to come by providing a centrally placed High Altar surrounded on four sides by seating to allow Mass to be said facing the congregation. A separate Blessed Sacrament Altar is situated at a slightly higher level beyond the Sanctuary in an area which is partially enclosed and may serve as a small chapel.

Above the Narthex, which incorporates a Mortuary Chapel and penetrates into the main volume of the Church through a glazed timber screen, there is a gallery with seating for a further 50 & two generously sized rooms for Guild & St Vincent de Paul activities, with glazed openings overlooking the Sanctuary.

The Baptistry to the left of the Narthex, entered down a flight of steps from the Nav, is low ceilinged & suffused by subdued light from a series of slit windows incorporating temporary tinted glazing. On the opposite side are the Sacristies for Priests & Boys with a glazed link to the Presbytery. This comprises a suite for the Parish Priest, three split-level bedroom/sitting rooms for Curates, a guest room, dining room, kitchen & accommodation for 2 domestic staff plus 2 call rooms, garage, etc.

Both buildings are of load-bearing brick construction, the buttresses of the tall Church gables being expressed externally & internally. Roofs are timber joisted, boarded & covered in copper, the longer spans of the Church being carried on steel beams. Ceilings are softwood throughout, close boarded in the Presbytery & slatted in the Church. The walls are cement rendered & painted white internally & the floor of the Church is finished in mixed red, brown & buff quarry tiles, the latter being used for the altar bases too. Timber finishings are of Makore, as are the seats in the Church.

The lighting is by concealed fluorescent tubes round the perimeter & the heating by circulated hot air through floor grilles from gas fired burners in the basement.

The material has been arranged using original Gillespie Kidd and Coia project reference codes. The reference codes CHE, CH/EA and CEA were used for this project. To simplify the catalogue the code CHE has been used throughout.

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Catalogued by Tracy Wilkinson, GKC Project Archivist

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