A large town church by one of the leading church practices in Liverpool in the late nineteenth century. Although the hard industrial brick of the  exterior is a little forbidding, the interior is handled with confidence.

A mission was established in 1894 and the present church built to serve the growing Catholic population of the western side of central Warrington.

Description

The list description, below, is very brief, and since the time of listing the tower has lost its saddleback roof.

The church is built of hard red Accrington brick; the roofs are covered with Welsh slate. The plan comprises a west porch, a substantial west tower the full width of the nave, nave and sanctuary under a single roof, aisles on both sides with lean-to roofs and a rectangular southeastern Lady Chapel with a hipped roof. The west elevation is handsome and striking, with a single-storey porch across the whole front with a central pointed doorway under a steep gable and four small lancets each side with foiled heads. Above is a large six-light window with elaborate Decorated tracery, with small trefoiled windows in the end walls of the aisles. The west and east faces of the tower have three tall windows with trefoil tracery at the bell-stage; the narrower north and south sides have two thin window slits. The aisles have pairs of lancets in each bay, the clerestorey has triple lancets. The east wall of the sanctuary has a triplet of stepped lancet windows with trefoil tracery like that in the tower.

The interior has nave arcades of four bays of pointed arches resting on cylindrical columns of red sandstone with stiff-leaf capitals. At the west end of the nave is a broad tower arch with a gallery beneath; the tower arch is mirrored in the arch to the Sanctuary, which is flanked by side chapels.  The doors to the confessionals are set under blind arches in the north aisle; at the east end of the south aisle twin arches open into the Lady Chapel. All the internal walls are plastered and painted. There is some stained glass in the eastern windows, but most of the windows are clear-glazed. Fittings include the panelling in the sanctuary and the high altar, which both look to be 1920s.

List description

II

1894/5 by Sinnott and Powell. Red brick with Decorated style west window, and pointed lancets in aisles (in pairs) and clerestory (in threes). West tower with steep saddleback roof. West porch.

Heritage Details