A simple, nicely-detailed example of the round-arched style which flourished in the first half of the twentieth century.

The parish was created from Lymington and Lyndhurst parishes in 1939. An inscription in the church records that a Miss Baker paid for the site and the church building (architect Alan Stewart of Bournemouth). The first parish priest was Fr John James Haley, who died in July 1939 and whose requiem was the first Mass in the newly-opened church.

Description

The church is a simple structure in a modern Romanesque style, faced with red brick and with a plain tile roof. It comprises a tall aisleless nave and a single-bay chancel under one roof, with a low baptistery projection at the ritual west end, square south porch, square projecting northeast Lady Chapel and an apsidal sanctuary. A low passage at the southeast corner links the church to the presbytery. The tall gabled west wall above the baptistery has a triple lancet window set in a round-headed arch; the nave side walls are divided into bays by brick buttresses and each bay has a single tall round-headed window; the apsidal sanctuary has a stepped triple window and a conical roof.

Internally the church has bare buff brick walls, a parquet floor and a plastered segmental ceiling. The windows all have simple brick reveals and are clear glazed. At the east end a tall round-headed arch opens into the sanctuary. Many of the fittings, including the benches and altar, are modern. The most striking fitting is a handsome floor brass in front of the altar with the figure of Fr John James Haley who ‘built this church of St Anne and the priest’s house’

Heritage Details