Church of St Ann with Lych Gate and Churchyard Wall, Rainhill, St. Helens

Description

RAINHILL

1303/7/44 WARRINGTON ROAD
28-JAN-71 RAINHILL
CHURCH OF ST ANN WITH LYCH GATE AND
CHURCHYARD WALL

(Formerly listed as:
WARRINGTON ROAD
RAINHILL
CHURCH OF ST ANNE)
(Formerly listed as:
WARRINGTON ROAD
RAINHILL
CHURCH OF ST ANN)

II
Parish church of 1837-43 by E Welch, enlarged 1868-69 by G H Ridsdale.

MATERIALS: Mainly hammer-dressed red sandstone with freestone dressings, with some coursed rubble sandstone (probably intended to be rendered), slate roof.

PLAN: Nave and chancel under a single roof, south transept with south aisle, north aisle, west tower, south-west vestries.

EXTERIOR: The west end, including the tower, is neo-Norman, the remainder free Perpendicular. The 3-stage tower has shallow angle buttresses in the lower 2 stages. The west doorway has a broad chamfer and the date 1837 in the apex. The lower 2 stages have round-headed windows, with hood moulds in the second storey. The upper stage has narrow attached shafts at the angles, with scalloped capitals. Two-light belfry openings have plate-tracery trefoils and hood mould. The crown has blind arcaded parapets, central gablet with clock, and corner pinnacles. The nave has triple round-headed gallery windows either side of the tower. The south wall of the nave retains round-headed windows, partly obscured by the vestry, as does the transept, which has 3 stepped lights under a quatrefoil window in the gable. The west end of the north aisle is also neo-Norman. It has 2 round-headed windows above a round-headed doorway with continuous moulding. The remainder of the fabric is later. Nave and chancel have a clerestorey of 4 broad windows in the spaces between aisle roofs and eaves, with cusped-triangle tracery. The north aisle has, from the west end, two 3-light windows, then an entrance in a projecting gabled bay with segmental-pointed double doors under a square label, two 2-light square-headed windows, of which the easternmost is in a bay set back, and 3-light east window. The south aisle has a similar arrangement of 2-light square-headed windows, the easternmost set back, and 2-light east window. The chancel has a 7-light east window with transom set low down above blind panelling.

INTERIOR: Interior details belong to 1868-69 and later, but it retains the width and height of the 1830s nave to create a large barn-like space. Arcades are 4-bay on the north side, 3-bay on the south side and incorporating the transept, with octagonal piers and double-chamfer arches. Nave and chancel have a 4-bay roof of main and subsidiary trusses. Trusses have collar beams, queen posts and arched braces, and main trusses are on corbelled brackets. The 2 easternmost bays are on corbelled wall shafts with foliage capitals. Clerestorey windows have shallow rere-arches with central colonnette. In the south transept is a single queen-post roof truss with round-arched braces in the spaces between posts, and behind which are polygonal rafters. Walls are plastered. Nave and aisles have a raised parquet floor, with floorboards below pews and choir stalls. The chancel has a tile floor.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: The original open-arcaded gallery front is retained, with a dog-leg stair in the nave, in a very narrow gallery at the west end. The neo-Norman font is probably also of the 1830s, and is octagonal with scalloped underside and with sunken shafts on the stem. Pews of 1869 have panelled ends with moulded square tops. The pulpit, dated 1896, is polygonal with canopied niches. There is a low Gothic panelled screen between nave and chancel. Choir stalls are C20, plain with panelled ends and backs. The communion rail on iron uprights is also C20. The Gothic panelled reredos spans the width of the chancel and continues as screens on the north and south sides of the sanctuary. It has cusped ogee arches and pinnacles. There are several stained-glass windows, chief of which is the impressive Last Supper in the east window (1885). Wall monuments include a tablet with broken column to William Owen (d 1862) by W. Bennett of Liverpool, and tablet with draped urn to May Edwards (d 1844).

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Neo-Norman former school of 1848 on west side of the churchyard (now Parish Centre).

Lych gate of 1915 set to the east corner of the churchyard. Shallow in depth with low, red-sandstone side walls supporting a timber frame with unglazed, cusped side lights and trefoils and a red-tiled, pitched roof surmounted by a cross finial. The timber frame and bargeboards both incorporate simple carved decoration. Low timber gates with pierced, cusped detailing exist to the north-east end. Attached low sandstone churchyard wall with alternating flat and pyramidal copings.

HISTORY: The church was begun in 1837 by Edward Welch (1806-68), architect of Liverpool. Original plans show a cruciform church with west gallery, to which Welch probably added a north aisle after 1843. Welch began his career under John Oates of Halifax, as did Joseph Hansom with whom Welch was in partnership until their bankruptcy in 1834. Welch returned to practice on his own in Liverpool 1837-49, during which time he built Gothic and neo-Norman churches. The church of St Ann was enlarged and restored in 1868-69 by G.H. Ridsdale. He replaced the north transept and aisle with a new, longer north aisle, and added a south aisle on the east side of the south transept. The chancel was probably also lengthened, and the gallery taken down. South-west vestries were added in 1961. The graveyard was extended in 1914 and the land and churchyard wall were donated by the Roby family (local owners of a brass foundry in Rainhill) in memory of Albert Wallace Roby, his wife and children who had died in a train crash in 1912. The lych gate was constructed in 1915 and was erected in memory of William Henry Roby.

SOURCES:
R Pollard and N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Lancashire, Liverpool and the South-West (2006), 546-47.
Lambeth Palace Library, Incorporated Church Building Society Archives.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The Church of St Ann, Rainhill, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural quality: part of the church is built in the neo-Norman style fashionable in the 1830s and 1840s, including the tower, which well represents the approach to Norman architecture as it was understood at the time. The remainder of the church is an essay in C19 Perpendicular style.
* Interior survival and quality: the interior retains most of its traditional C19 and early C20 furnishings, which are of consistent quality.

SJ4932891253

Reasons for Listing

The church of St Ann, Rainhill, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Part of the church is built in the neo-Norman style fashionable in the 1830s and 1840s, including the tower, which well represents the approach to Norman architecture as it was understood at the time. The remainder of the church is an essay in C19 Perpendicular style.
* The interior retains most of its traditional C19 and early C20 furnishings, which are of consistent quality.

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