Gateway Church Wirral (formerly known as the Wirral Christian Centre) is a church on Woodchurch Road,

Birkenhead Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liver ...

, Wirral,

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wi ...

, England. It is an active

Elim Pentecostal Church The Elim Pentecostal Church is a UK-based Pentecostal Christian denomination. History George Jeffreys (1889–1962), a Welshman, founded the ''Elim Pentecostal Church'' in Monaghan, Ireland in 1915. Jeffreys was an evangelist with a Welsh Co ...

. The church building, originally Oxton Road Congregational Church, is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...

as a designated Grade II

listed building 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 Irel ...

History

The building originated as a Congregational church, it was built between 1857 and 1858, and designed by William Cole. The church cost over £5,000, and a further £2,500 was spent during the 1880s on improvements. It was badly damaged by fire in 1992, and was restored, but later became redundant, and fell into disrepair. In 2008 the building was restored again to become the Wirral Christian Centre. Its first minister was

Frederick Smeeton Williams Frederick Smeeton Williams (1829 – 26 October 1886) was an English minister in the Congregational church, Congregational Church, best known for his books on the early History of rail transport in Great Britain, history of UK railways. Bio ...

Architecture

The church is built in

rubble Rubble is broken stone, of irregular size, shape and texture; undressed especially as a filling-in. Rubble naturally found in the soil is known also as 'brash' (compare cornbrash)."Rubble" def. 2., "Brash n. 2. def. 1. ''Oxford English Dictionar ...

stone and has roofs of

Westmorland Westmorland (, formerly also spelt ''Westmoreland'';R. Wilkinson The British Isles, Sheet The British IslesVision of Britain/ref> is a historic county in North West England spanning the southern Lake District and the northern Dales. It had an ...

slate. It consists of a wide six- bay

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

with a tower on the north side. At the corners of the tower are clasping

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...

es. There is a west door with a moulded arch at the base of the tower, and above this is a decorative

hood mould In architecture, a hood mould, hood, label mould (from Latin ''labia'', lip), drip mould or dripstone, is an external moulded projection from a wall over an opening to throw off rainwater, historically often in form of a ''pediment''. This mouldin ...

. In the top stage are paired bell openings. The summit is battlemented with corner pinnacles that have been reduced from their original height. On the other corners of the church are angle buttresses rising to form tall octagonal pinnacles. The nave has a seven-light west window, beneath which is a canted baptistry. The bays of the nave are divided by buttresses and contain three-light windows with Decorated

tracery Tracery is an architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support the ...

. Towards the east end of the north side is a doorway, over which is a rose window. The interior is described as a "wide short auditorium over a basement".

Notes and references

Notes Citations {{Reflist Churches in Birkenhead Grade II listed churches in Merseyside Gothic Revival church buildings in England Gothic Revival architecture in Merseyside Churches completed in 1858 Pentecostal churches in the United Kingdom

History

Architecture

See also

Notes and references