Although its design is rather old-fashioned for its date, this is a handsome and richly appointed building by one of the more prolific Catholic architectural firms working in the North West at the end of the nineteenth century.

Seaforth takes its name from Seaforth House, built for the Liverpool merchant and politician John Gladstone and demolished in about 1880. It enjoyed a brief popularity as a fashionable resort before the northward extension of Liverpool docks. A mission was established in 1884 and the present church built in 1898-1901. It was built opposite the now-demolished early nineteenth-century Anglican church of St Thomas.

Description

See list description, below. Of the fittings, The Buildings of England notes the tall pinnacled reredos of the high altar with its tabernacle, all of Sicilian and Sienese marble, carved by Boultons to designs by Sinnott; rich wooden altars in both side chapels, stained glass in the east and west windows by Hardman and in the aisles by Atkinson Bros. of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and paintings round the apse of scenes from the Life of Christ by May Cooksey, circa 1900.The Stations of the Cross are painted in arched recesses between the aisle windows. The Buildings of England also records that the interior was restored in the 1990s ‘after a destructive re-ordering’.

List description

II

Roman Catholic church. 1898-1901, by Sinnott, Sinnott & Powell. Yellow sandstone ashlar (tower snecked) with red sandstone dressings, slate roofs. STYLE: C13 Gothic. PLAN: tall nave on north-south axis, with south-east tower (uncompleted), east and west aisles, a baptistery at the south end and a triple transept at the north end of the west aisle, and a full-height apsidal north sanctuary with side offices to the west. EXTERIOR: the 2-bay south gable, with angle buttresses and a central buttress carried up to a statue of Our Lady in a niche, has two 2-centred arched doorways moulded in 2 orders and containing square-headed doorways, two 2-centred arched 3-light traceried windows with deep moulded reveals and hoodmoulds, a circular traceried window in the centre of the gable, a small triangular arched window above this, and gable coping with a cross finial. The tower to the right, rising above eaves level in 3 unequal stages, has coupled pointed-arched to the first, a pair of cusped lancets to the second, uncompleted belfry louvres to the 3rd, and a pyramidal roof. The baptistery to the left, with a pitched roof, has a large 2-centred arched traceried 3-light window with a hoodmould. The clerestory of the nave has large 2- centred arched traceried 3-light windows; the aisles and aisle transept have 2-centred arched one-light windows with hoodmoulds. The 5-sided sanctuary has gables over 3-light windows. The hoodmoulds of the windows have differing figured stops. INTERIOR: 6-bay arcades of 2-centred arches carried on polished granite columns which have capitals with unusually large naturalistic foliation (all different, but now painted); hammerbeam roof. A conservative design for the date.

Heritage Details