St Ann's Church is a
redundant Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
church in
Warrington,
Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...
, England. It is recorded in the
National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II*
listed building.
The church was closed for worship in November 1995, and since 1996 has been used as an indoor climbing centre.
[ From the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s the church was heated by steam from the then adjacent Tetley Walker's brewery.][ A new church, also dedicated to St Ann, was built on a different site half a mile away in 2000.
]
History
The church was built between 1866 and 1868 to a design by John Douglas.[ There were delays caused by bad weather, and it was not until local solicitor William Beamont paid the builder that the church was consecrated, on 27 February 1869. In 1996 it became a climbing centre with a ]mezzanine
A mezzanine (; or in Italian language, Italian, a ''mezzanino'') is an intermediate floor in a building which is partly open to the double-height ceilinged floor below, or which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, a loft ...
in the chancel. These changes are said to be reversible.
Architecture
The church is built in red brick with some dressings in blue brick and it has a slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
roof. Its plan consists of a six-bay
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...
nave without aisles, an apsidal chancel, north and south porches, a north vestry and a southeast tower. The tower is in the angle between the nave and the chancel and in three stages. In the lower stage is a single lancet window
A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural element are typical of Gothic church edifices of the earliest period. Lancet wi ...
and in the second stage are three similar windows. The third stage contains pairs of louvred bell openings and above these is a corbel
In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...
led parapet. On the southwest corner is a stair- turret rising to the height of the tower and capped by a tall conical-roofed turret rising above the parapet. On top of the tower is a tall steeply-pitched saddleback roof.[ In the sanctuary (but currently obscured) are paintings of ''The Evangelists'' by Westlake, dated 1868, which were repainted by T. Hesketh in 1894.][
Edward Hubbard describes its architecture as being "quite startlingly bold and original".][
]
See also
* Grade I and II* listed buildings in Warrington
* List of new churches by John Douglas
References
External links
Climbing centre websiteNew St Ann's Church website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Old Saint Ann's Church, Warrington
Churches completed in 1868
19th-century Church of England church buildings
Grade II* listed churches in Cheshire
Gothic Revival church buildings in England
Gothic Revival architecture in Cheshire
John Douglas buildings
Churches in Warrington
Former Church of England church buildings
Church of England church buildings in Cheshire