An interesting concrete-framed church with some striking features, notably the full-height glazed west wall and the angled projecting windows on the flank elevations, influenced by Spence’s Coventry Cathedral.

The parish was formed in 1925, to cater for the westward expansion of St Helens. A modest church built at that time survives as the parish hall. The brick presbytery also appears to date from about 1925. The present church was built in 1964 and consecrated in 1965.

Description

A tall church with exposed concrete frame, brown brick facings and pitched slate roof. The plan is rectangular, with low flat-roofed side aisles and an apsidal east end. The west wall is glazed from floor to ridge with a concrete grid of seven tall lights. The south aisle has six round-headed windows, the north aisle a window strip just below the roof. Above the aisles both sides have continuous angled projecting windows, in the manner of Coventry Cathedral, with a clerestorey window strip above. The apsidal east wall is blind.

The interior is tall and articulated by the exposed concrete framing which consists of ‘jointed crucks’, like the columns of nave arcades, with horizontal cross-beams above the openings to the low side aisles. The uprights are freestanding at the east end, creating a vestigial ambulatory. The wall surfaces are bare brick. The font and timber pews came from the former church of 1925. The lower part of the west window contains good coloured glass installed in 1971-2.

Heritage Details