A large late 1960s church of angular design, with a bold top-lit ‘crossing’ housing the sanctuary, and spacious transepts. The design bears several fashionable hallmarks of the time, but is somewhat crude in its massing and execution.

Lacking a church, Mass was said in the late 1940s in the Stone Cross Inn and the Delves Inn. Land was purchased in Hall Green Road for a church and under the Rev. Michael McManus, what is now the church hall was built in the early 1960s as a dual-purpose church and hall. Fr McManus also had St Joseph’s on the Yew Tree Estate built, and it is likely that he used the same architects (Jennings, Homer & Lynch) here. The present church (architect Leon Brocki of Stoke-on-Trent) was completed in 1967 and dedicated on 11 July 2007. St Joseph’s is still served from here.

Description

A large church, steel-framed with brown brick facing. It is built to an angular design, characteristic of the 1960s, with large transepts (with triangular dormers) and spacious sacristies and a meeting room beyond the sanctuary. Over the crossing is a copper-clad spire, split into two tiers with an opening between them. The main entrance front is broad with a pair of doors either side of a glazed screen, all within a reinforced concrete surrounding frame.

The dominant feature inside is the crossing, formed of four inclined steel rectangular hollow sections which project outside to form the corners of the spire. The sanctuary has a timber-panelled ceiling over it (like the nave and transepts) and is lit by quasi-clerestory windows. The nave is of three and a half bays, beyond which is a narthex of one and a half bays; a baptistery, with grey marble-clad walls projects into the narthex. All the windows are clear glazed.

Heritage Details