An inventive and original 1960s design by a well-known regional firm of church architects.

The first Catholic chapel dedicated to St Agnes in Huyton was built in 1856 on land given by the Molyneux-Seel family. The building was demolished in the 1960s to make way for the present church designed by L. A. G. Prichard & Sons, but the nineteenth-century presbytery survives.

Description

The main body of the church comprises a pair of large pointed concrete vaults fanning out from a long east wall, each finishing as a jutting prow filled with glass between close-set mullions.  The design was possibly inspired by Jorn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House, of which the first phase was finished in 1963. At the centre of the east wall is a tall pyramidal concrete spirelet over the sanctuary. Adjoining the spire is a red brick porch with a dramatic projecting canopy.

The interior is wide and light and unencumbered, with a carpeted floor and plainly finished walls and ceiling. There is a ‘west’ gallery on concrete piloti and a shallow sanctuary recess in the east wall with an altar dais lit by strip side windows with coloured glass and a lantern light above. The benches are presumably the original fittings.

Heritage Details