The Church of St Paul is in Derby Lane, Stoneycroft,

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

, England. It 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 ...

. It was designed by

Giles Gilbert Scott Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (9 November 1880 – 8 February 1960) was a British architect known for his work on the New Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, Battersea Power Station, Liverpool Cathedral, and ...

, who also designed the Anglican

Liverpool Cathedral Liverpool Cathedral is the Cathedral of the Anglican Diocese of Liverpool, built on St James's Mount in Liverpool, and the seat of the Bishop of Liverpool. It may be referred to as the Cathedral Church of Christ in Liverpool (as recorded in th ...

. In 2016 the building was closed with a view to selling it to the Coptic Orthodox Church. Its benefice was united with that of St Anne, Stanley.

History

Church of England

The church was built between 1913 and 1916, and was paid for by H. Douglas Horsfall. The church has been restored three times; in 1955, in 1972 and in 1998–2013.

Coptic Orthodox Church

In 2016 the building was sold to the

Coptic Orthodox The Coptic Orthodox Church ( cop, Ϯⲉⲕ̀ⲕⲗⲏⲥⲓⲁ ⲛ̀ⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ ⲛ̀ⲟⲣⲑⲟⲇⲟⲝⲟⲥ, translit=Ti.eklyseya en.remenkimi en.orthodoxos, lit=the Egyptian Orthodox Church; ar, الكنيسة القبطي� ...

Diocese of the Midlands The Coptic Orthodox Diocese of the Midlands, UK is under the care of Bishop Missael. Background and Foundation In 1991 the first Coptic Orthodox Diocese to be established in the United Kingdom, and one of the first in the diaspora, was the Dioce ...

and is now St. Mary & St. Cyril's Coptic Orthodox Church.

Architecture

Exterior

St Paul's is constructed with a concrete core, lined internally and externally with brick. It has stone bands and dressings, and a tiled roof. It consists of a

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 ...

and

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

without division, north and south narrow (passage)

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, par ...

s, three north and south

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building wi ...

s, and a large central tower. The tower has a round-arched recess on each side containing round-headed two-light bell openings, which have louvres and Y-

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 ...

. On top of the tower is a pyramidal roof. The southeast corner of the tower is chamfered and contains a canted stair

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

surmounted by a pinnacle. At the west end are three lancet windows in an arched recess; it is flanked on each side by a porch. Each transept has a

half-hipped A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

, and contains windows similar to those at the west end. The east wall is blank, and there are four-light windows in the north and south walls of the chancel. The aisles have rose windows.

Interior

The interior of the church is plain, being entirely rendered other than for areas of exposed brick acting as dressings. It is effectively in three bays, each with a square

groin vault A groin vault or groined vault (also sometimes known as a double barrel vault or cross vault) is produced by the intersection at right angles of two barrel vaults. Honour, H. and J. Fleming, (2009) ''A World History of Art''. 7th edn. London: Lau ...

, which are joined to each other by pointed tunnel vaults. Steps lead up to the chancel, whose south transept contains a chapel, and the north transept an organ loft and

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

. The low chancel wall has a canted pulpit at each end. The three- manual pipe organ was built in 1916 by

Rushworth and Dreaper Rushworth and Dreaper was a firm of organ builders, and later general instrument suppliers associated with Paul McCartney based in Liverpool. The manufacturer was founded in 1828 by William Rushworth, operating until 2002. Upon its liquidation, ...

at a cost of about £1,000 (). The organ case dates from the 18th century and was originally in the former St Paul's Church, which has been demolished. It is decorated with carving by

Grinling Gibbons Grinling Gibbons (4 April 1648 – 3 August 1721) was an Anglo-Dutch sculptor and wood carver known for his work in England, including Windsor Castle and Hampton Court Palace, St Paul's Cathedral and other London churches, Petworth House and othe ...

. In the tower are two bells, which were also moved from the old St Paul's. The older bell dates from 1775, and the newer, larger bell was cast in 1861 in Murphy's Bell Foundry,

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

. The bells were restored in 1975 at the

Whitechapel Bell Foundry The Whitechapel Bell Foundry was a business in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. At the time of the closure of its Whitechapel premises, it was the oldest manufacturing company in Great Britain. The bell foundry primarily made church bells ...

References

Notes Citations

External links

St. Mary & St. Cyril Coptic Orthodox Church
{{DEFAULTSORT:Liverpool, Church of St Paul Church of St Paul Gothic Revival church buildings in England Grade II* listed churches in Merseyside Church of St Paul Anglican Diocese of Liverpool Church of England church buildings in Merseyside Giles Gilbert Scott church buildings Churches completed in 1916 20th-century Church of England church buildings Coptic Orthodox churches in the United Kingdom