Church of St Anne

Church of St Anne

This church on Aigburth Road was built in 1836-7 by the architects Cunningham and Holme, with a chancel and transepts added in 1853. It is constructed of stone with a slate roof and is an early example of Romanesque Revival architecture.

The church is unusually orientated with its liturgical east end facing west. The main body consists of a four-bay nave with a tower at its east end, flanked by a baptistery and a stair bay. Stair bays are positioned in the angles between the nave and transepts. A three-bay chancel extends from the main body, with an organ loft to the south and vestry to the north.

The exterior features a sill band, impost band, cornice and plain parapet, with the cornice to the eastern parts being corbelled. Round-headed nave windows with shafts are set between pilaster buttresses. The east entrance is round-headed with two orders of columns and beak head mouldings to the arch. Above it is a set of blind arcading beneath a diapered gable rising to the level of the main cornice band. A clock face sits within a blind rose window that incorporates grotesque heads. The bell-stage of the tower above has paired two-light bell openings finished with a corbelled cornice and parapet with blind arcading. The transept ends have three lower windows and three stepped windows to the gable, set above the cornice. The chancel window is three lights with a rose motif, while the organ loft to the south has three round-headed windows. The vestry has two paired windows.

Inside, galleries occupy the east end (liturgical west) and the transepts, with gallery fronts featuring blind arcading. The nave roof has collars, and the transepts have hammer beam roofs. The chancel arch is of two orders and features zig zag ornament. The chancel window has shafts to its mullions.

The church is thought to have been funded by four Liverpool merchants and was initially a chapel within the parish of Childwall.

On 16 December 1913, the church was attacked by suffragettes from the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903. The WSPU had adopted increasingly militant direct action from 1912, targeting property to advance the demand for votes for women whilst avoiding harm to people. The attack on St Anne's was carried out secretly overnight while the building was empty. The pulpit and choir stalls were destroyed and the new organ seriously damaged. Though the perpetrators were never formally identified, copies of The Suffragette newspaper and notes about WSPU demands discovered at the site linked the attack to other arson campaigns. A renovation scheme the following year was funded through insurance and donations.