St Barnabas' Church is in Smithdown Place, Mossley Hill,

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial and metropolitan county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Greater Manchester to the east, Cheshire to the south, the Wales, Welsh county of Flintshire across ...

, England. It stands at the junction of Allerton Road, Smithdown Road, and Penny Lane. It is an active

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

in the deanery of Liverpool South Childwall, the archdeaconry of Liverpool, and the diocese of Liverpool. The 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, ...

as a designated Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

St Barnabas' was built between 1900 and 1914, and designed by the Liverpool architect James Francis Doyle. Before 1914 the congregation met in a temporary iron church. The architect died before the building was completed and the church was finished under the supervision of his brother Sydney W. Doyle. The church building cost £14,000 and, with the internal fittings, its total cost was about £25,000 (). In the 1960s pews were removed from the east end of the nave, and a nave altar and communion rails were installed. A small kitchen was added to the rear of the church in 1999, and since then more pews have been removed to create an open space at the west end of the nave.

Architecture

Exterior

The church is built in specially moulded bricks of various sizes, with red

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

dressings, and the roof is of slate. The architectural style is

Perpendicular In geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at right angles, i.e. at an angle of 90 degrees or π/2 radians. The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the '' perpendicular symbol'', � ...

. Inside, the columns are in Storeton stone. The plan of the church consists of a four- 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 clerestory, north and south

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

s under lean-to roofs, two south porches, north and south transepts, a

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

with a south chapel and a northeast

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colony, English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spen ...

, and a west tower. The tower has a west entrance, above which is a three-light window. The bell openings are paired with louvres, and above them is a cornice and an arcaded embattled

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...

. The porches also have embattled parapets. The windows along the sides of the aisles and the clerestory have three lights, and those in the transepts and the chancel have five lights. The chapel windows have three lights, and those in the vestry have two and three lights.

Interior

Inside the church are five-bay arcades between the nave and aisles, and a three-bay arcade between the chancel and the chapel, the latter being more ornate than the former. In the east window is a war memorial in stained glass by H. G. Hiller. The two- manual

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a Musical keyboard, keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provide ...

was built by Henry Willis & Sons, and there have been alterations and repairs since. The organ case was designed by Sydney W. Doyle. There is a ring of eight bells installed in 2010: the six largest bells were transferred from St James, Waterfoot, Lancashire, and the two smallest bells from elsewhere.

Notable members

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained global fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and the piano, and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John ...

said on '' The Late Late Show with James Corden'' that he sang in the choir of St Barnabas' Church when he was young.Paul McCartney Carpool Karaoke, The Late Late Show, 22 June 2018
/ref> A brass plate on the Choir stalls of the Church was installed to commemorate this.

References