Roman Catholic Church of St Anne

Roman Catholic Church of St Anne

This Roman Catholic church was built between 1883 and 1884 to designs by architect Albert Vicars. It is constructed of red brick with blue brick detailing, limestone dressings, and a slate roof.

The church is oriented north-west to south-east with a spire positioned at the south-east corner. The plan comprises a nave with single aisles to the north and south.

The building is designed in the Early English Gothic Revival style. The exterior displays lancet windows at ground and clerestory level, shallow buttresses, and polychrome brick detailing. The north elevation, fronting Alcester Street, features a large gable with pinnacle and a central gothic geometric window with stained glass and quatrefoil tracery. To the left (south) of this is a brick spire. Beneath the tracery window sits a pair of entrance doors beneath a shallow porch with limestone moulded double gable, piers with foliate capitals, and lancet arches above the doors, each bearing circular relief carvings with cross and trefoil detailing.

The tower is substantial and square on plan, with lancet windows at ground and clerestory level. The spire crowning it is octagonal with buttresses and lucarnes featuring cusped trefoil heads and brick detailing.

The southern elevation shows a series of paired lancet windows with limestone hood moulds with cusped trefoil heads, at both ground floor in the southern aisle and clerestory level above. Both the single-storey aisle and nave feature dentilled cornices and blue brick detailing around the lancets. Two tall, double-height lancet windows light the sanctuary. The northern elevation is similar, though at the eastern end it has a small late-20th-century entrance porch. At the western end is an attached sacristy projecting from the north-west corner with flat-arched mullioned sash windows and central brick stack. The western elevation displays a large rose window with cusped tracery and a further circular window to the right (south) at the location of the southern side chapel. To the north are two chamfered limestone mullioned windows at ground floor and a door with one additional window at first floor under an arch. The first storey of the left-hand bay has a late-20th-century window under a flat arch of rubbed brick and appears partially rebuilt, possibly when the adjoining presbytery was constructed in the 1950s.

The interior features a lofty nave with barrel-vaulted ceiling, flanked by aisles with an arcade of circular piers supporting gothic arches linked by gilded bosses. Above, paired clerestory windows contain leaded stained glass within the trefoils, between which pilasters on angel corbels support the arched roof trusses. The nave and aisles retain their 19th-century pews. At the eastern end, the former baptistery is located to the north of the gallery, with 19th-century railings. The gallery houses the organ above beneath the eastern window, with entrance doors below enclosed by half-glazed timber doors. To the right (south) of the gallery is a chapel with cast iron half-height rail.

The northern aisle contains two timber confessionals, each with four separate booths behind timber doors with cusped detailing and trefoil heads.

The sanctuary is accessed by five steps at the western end and contains predominantly late-20th-century fittings, though a section of the 19th-century stone pulpit to the left of the altar survives and now serves as the ambo. The reredos beneath the rose window features blind gothic arcading from the 19th-century scheme. Above, the vaulted ceiling panels are painted with a stencilled scheme. To the left (south) of the sanctuary, separated by a section of the former communion rail, is a side chapel dedicated to the Sacred Heart with a 19th-century gothic altar and altar table, though the statuary in the niches has been changed. The original hexagonal stone font is located within this chapel, inscribed on its northern face: "IN / MEMORY / OF / UMIGLIANO / AND / MADELEINE / PANICALI".

To the north of the sanctuary is the Lady Chapel, which again features the original 19th-century gothic altar and altar table with replacement statuary. Both north and south side chapels have circular windows with stained glass. At the western end of the northern aisle, an arched door leads to the sacristy, which has a mullioned window on its northern wall. To the north of the sacristy is a room currently used as a kitchen, with a timber four-pane sash window. To the south of the sacristy is a porch with a timber plank door with chamfered cusped detail.