A functional building of the early 1960s, built to a traditional plan but using modern forms and materials, catering for a new housing estate.

The parish was erected in 1932 to serve a new housing estate then being developed, and a temporary wooden church was built in 1933 from designs by G. B. Cox. This was replaced in 1962 by the present church, designed to seat about 400. A presbytery was built next to the church in the same year. The architects were Jennings, Homer & Lynch of Brierley Hill. The adjacent school was opened in 1936. In more recent times, the St John’s Centre on the north side of the church was opened in 2010.

Description

The church is a functional building of the early 1960s, the design combining modern and traditional elements. The external facings are of brindled brick laid principally in stretcher bond, the roof coverings of Roman tiles. The plan comprises a rectangular aisleless nave and sanctuary under a continuous pitched roof, with lower flat-roofed projections on either side, now used as chapels, and a southwest bell tower. The west front, originally reached up a broad flight of steps, is of plain brickwork relieved by vertical brick ribs, with a central doorway and a five light window above rising into the head of the broad shallow gable. The projecting eaves of the nave roof have timber brackets. Set back from the west end on the south side of the church is a brick bell tower with an open belfry and a pitched roof. The side elevations of the church are of seven bays divided by brick pilaster strips. Each bay has full-height three-light windows but the lower parts of the windows are either bricked in or covered by side buildings. The east wall is blind.

The interior is broad and light, with a terrazzo floor, plain plastered walls with brick pilaster strips concealing the concrete or steel piers of the building frame and an open roof ceiled between the main beams. At the west end is a timber-fronted gallery with a glazed vestibule beneath. There are straight-headed openings to a former Lady Chapel on the north side and a cry room on the south side. There is no structural division between the nave and the sanctuary, which occupies the eastern bay and has a full-height timber reredos with canopy against the east wall. There is figurative stained glass in the west window and the southeast window. The other windows have coloured borders.

Heritage Details