A simple interwar design, one of several architectural collaborations between Bishop Thomas Shine and F. Spink, builder of Bridlington. 

From 1906 a priest from Hull said Sunday Mass in a small café at Withernsea (Hull’s closest holiday town). A tiny wooden church was built and replaced by the present permanent building in 1936. This is said to have been designed (together with eight other churches in the diocese) by Bishop Thomas Shine and F. Spink, a builder from Bridlington. The cost was £1,045. Bishop Shine had no architectural training, and the degree to which he was responsible for the design of this and other churches is unclear. The external design is similar to J. H. Garry’s church of St John Fisher, Sedgefield (Diocese of Hexham & Newcastle), built in the previous year.

Description

A modest red brick building hemmed in by terraced housing on either side. Brickwork laid in English garden wall bond. The west front has a parapet with the middle section boldly stepped up. Stepped brickwork giving something of an Art Deco character. Tall flat-headed lancet windows, the centre one broader and set higher up. Modern gabled porch of domestic character.

The interior is lit from windows at either end and from skylights set into the canted boarded ceiling with trusses supported on wall corbels. Three flat-headed east windows set high up, the centre one taller. Plastered and painted walls and no division between nave and sanctuary. West gallery, the area below enclosed (circa 2000) by a glazed screen to form an internal porch or lobby. Open-backed oak pews. Oak altar, low screen behind and tabernacle with Gothic panelling, from the old St Vincent’s church in Hull. Sanctuary and altar are raised on a timber platform. Stained glass, crucifixion and other scenes in the three east windows. Engraved glass in the screen beneath the west gallery. Stations of the Cross also from St Vincent’s, Hull.

Amended by AHP 16.01.2021

Heritage Details