Another Ealing Watercolour

 Yes, I enjoyed painting the small horse sculpture last week so much that I've been at it again this weekend.

Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady and St. Joseph, Hanwell

This is the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady and St. Joseph in Hanwell, which is the part of the London Borough of Ealing where I grew up. I've been reading a little bit about it, and discovered that the Roman Catholic parish was originally established to serve the needs of Irish labourers building the Great Western Railway. In the 1860s the original church was built by Edward Pugin, son of the very famous Victorian designer. By the 1960s the church was too small to serve the parish, and so this church was built in the mid 1960s and opened in 1967.

I was born in 1964 and I don't ever remember a time when it wasn't there. Now, I cannot confess to being a great fan of post war architecture. But during lockdown I watched a TV documentary about Coventry Cathedral, and in the summer of 2021 I paid a visit, and I have to say that I liked it. This has made me have another look , and in the case of a few modern churches, I rather like what's been done. This building of course looks nothing like Coventry Cathedral, but it has an imposing presence, and to me it has a much more welcoming appearance than many much older churches do.