St Ann's Church is an

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 t ...

chapel within His Majesty's Naval Base Portsmouth. It is regarded as the spiritual home of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

, and contains numerous memorials to men lost at sea. The original church was built in 1704, on the site of what is now Admiralty House. The present church was opened in 1786, and is built in red brick in Flemish bond. It was possibly designed by Marquand, a

Navy Board The Navy Board (formerly known as the Council of the Marine or Council of the Marine Causes) was the commission responsible for the day-to-day civil administration of the Royal Navy between 1546 and 1832. The board was headquartered within the ...

surveyor, working under

Samuel Wyatt Samuel Wyatt (8 September 1737, Weeford, Staffs. – London, 8 February 1807) was an English architect and engineer. A member of the Wyatt family, which included several notable 18th- and 19th-century English architects, his work was primarily in a ...

at Admiralty House. The contractors were

Thomas Parlby Thomas Parlby (1727–1802) Stone Hall, Stonehouse, in Plymouth "the big house overlooking Stonehouse Pool" (since demolished), was a civil engineering contractor described in his obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine as "Master Mason of HM Docks ...

& Sons. The church suffered some bomb damage in May 1941, and was restored in 1955–6. As the oldest surviving chapel in a navy yard, it was

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

on 25 September 1972. In October 2012, the church held ceremonies marking the 30th anniversary of the

Falklands War The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial ...

, attended by HRH The Princess Royal. the current

chaplain A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric (such as a minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, purohit, or imam), or a lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secular institution (such as a hospital, prison, military unit, intelligence ...

Revd The Reverend is an honorific style most often placed before the names of Christian clergy and ministers. There are sometimes differences in the way the style is used in different countries and church traditions. ''The Reverend'' is correctly ...

. James Francis, RN. The HMS ''Royal Oak'' Association holds an Act of Remembrance annually at the church on the Saturday nearest to 13 October, the date of the sinking of the battleship at

Scapa Flow Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern end in June 2009 Scapa Flow (; ) is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray,S. C. George, ''Jutland to Junkyard'', 1973. South Ronaldsay a ...

in 1939. At the service on 9 October 2019, eighty years after the ship was torpedoed, a memorial stone was unveiled in the church by HRH The Princess Royal. Although the last survivor died in 2016, some one hundred and fifty relatives and descendants of the crew attended.

References

External links

Hampshire Church Windows : St Ann's, Portsmouth

Church of England church buildings in Hampshire Religious buildings in Portsmouth {{UK-anglican-church-stub