The Sacred Heart RC church in Berkhamsted is a design of 1966-67, built ‘on restrained modern lines with a simple and economic plan-form to serve the new liturgy’.
The church was designed by Campling and Iliffe of Sunningdale, Berkshire. It was designed to accommodate 300, with room for fifty more in the gallery. An intended tower was abandoned at the insistence of Cardinal Heenan, who reversed the policy of Cardinal Godfrey of encouraging church towers. Work started in March 1966 and the church was opened by Cardinal Heenan on 4 June 1967 (plaque in entrance porch). The main contractors were Donald Lockhart Ltd of Berkhamsted. The contract cost, including landscaping but excluding professional fees, pews and furnishings, was £66,016. The church was consecrated by Cardinal Hume on 15 September 1968 (plaque in entrance porch).
The church is T-shaped on plan, with three areas of seating arranged in a nave and two transepts around the sanctuary. A Lady Chapel gives off the north transept and a (former) baptistery is located under the gallery at the west end of the nave. Sacristies, parish hall and presbytery lie to the east. The church is of cavity wall construction with buff facing bricks and stone window and door surrounds. The sanctuary is raised, with a clerestory and shallow pyramidal slate roof topped with a fibreglass spirelet. The nave roof is lower, also with a shallow-pitched slate roof, while the transepts have flat roofs hidden by raised parapets. The entrance is marked by a cantilevered concrete canopy with three shallow arches. A statue of the Sacred Heart stands on the central arch. Below this, the wall surrounding the entrance doors is faced in rubble stonework. As well as steps, the entrance has a ramp and handrail as features of the original design. Three pairs of glazed entrance doors have a moulded stone surround; above this, over the canopy, the west window is of similar width, and has a canted lintel. At the sides of the nave, the main windows are angled inwards to receive light from the west, in the manner of Coventry Cathedral. There is also a large square baptistery window at the west end on the north side. In the transepts, the wall itself is canted, and the windows set within the cant, in order to help direct light towards the altar. On the south transept there is an additional small doorway, with a whimsically heavy stone canopy, more Gothic than modern in character.
The glazed outer and inner doors give an unobstructed view from the outside of the church interior and sanctuary. The internal space is large, light and airy, the walls plastered and painted. At the west end is a gallery, with gently curved concave frontal. Mounted on the wall here (south side) is a ceramic plaque depicting the Madonna and Child, in the style of Della Robbia, a memorial to Fr Henry Harding (1840-1918), who founded the mission. On the north side is the former baptistery, with coloured glass in the window and iron gates (by Geoffrey Harper of Harpenden, as were the wrought iron and etched copper Stations), now used as a children’s area. The curved ceilings of the main space were specially designed for their acoustic qualities, with suspended coloured aluminium strips. A full-width nave arch and openings from the transepts give onto the sanctuary area. Here an arched recess in the east wall frames a life-size crucifix, carved in Italy and originally on a dark blue background (now cream, like the rest of the interior). Around the crucifix are two radiating bands of narrow slit windows, with red and yellow coloured glass.
On to the cache...
To the right side of the gateway, there's a wall with two signs on it. On the large red sign there is a phone number for the parish priest 01442 8A3B45
On the right hand gate post there's a maroon sign with six rows of white writing. C is number of words in line 3
On the left hand wall there is a white sign, PRIVATE PROPERTY
What is the year of the Highways Act that is in force? 19DE
The bottom line of the same sign ends with 3 numbers xy(z)) - add x and z together and subtract y for the value of F
The cache can be found at:
N 51° 45.B(A-C)(D/2) W 000° 34.FE(B-A)
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.
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