The Chapel

In 1925, the Religious of the Sacred Heart transferred their Boston school for girls to the former Tudor-Revival style estate of Loren D. Towle in Newton, Massachusetts. The Boston architectural firm of Maginnis and Walsh built the chapel and a four-story school wing between 1926 and 1928. The senior partner was Charles D. Maginnis (1867-1955), an immigrant from Londonderry, Ireland by way of Toronto, Canada. Maginnis’ leadership revolutionized the architecture of Roman Catholic institutions in America.

The Newton Country Day School of the Sacred Heart Chapel houses one of the largest and most sophisticated stained glass commissions created by the An Túr Gloine (Tower of Glass) cooperative workshop in Dublin, Ireland; seven three-light windows and a rose installed by 1929. The stained glass windows, created by artists Michael Healy, Alfred Earnest Child, Catherine (Kitty) A. O’Brien, Kathleen Quigley, and Ethel Rhind include: the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Sacred Heart of Mary rose window, St. Helena, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, St. Cecilia, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Catherine of Alexandria, and St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart.