Roman Catholic Church of the Annunciation and St Augustine with attached presbytery and parish hall

The Church of the Annunciation and St Augustine is a centrally-planned circular Roman Catholic church built in 1963–4, designed by Raglan Squire & Partners. It represents a reworked and reduced version of their competition entry for Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. The church is accompanied by an attached contemporary presbytery and parish hall.

The building is faced in red brick laid in stretcher bond, with cast concrete surrounds framing the entrances and copper roofs. The presbytery and parish hall match these materials, featuring blue engineering brick copings, flat roofs covered with sheet metal, and projecting arched concrete heads to some windows and doors.

The church is arranged on a circular plan with an ambulatory surrounding the main space. Confessionals and side chapels open off this ambulatory. On the south side, sacristies and a corridor lead to the parish room and presbytery.

Externally, the unrelieved brick walls give the building a defensive, fortress-like appearance. The high drum of the nave is encircled by a lower ambulatory with a flat roof covered in sheet metal. Above the brick core, folded concrete slab construction supports the roof and incorporates gabled clerestory windows clad in copper, each subdivided with glazing forming a cross. The building is crowned with a spiky central lantern, also clad in copper. To the north, two concrete arched entrances are framed by three barbican-like short circular towers. An inscribed foundation stone is positioned below a tall cross on the central tower. The presbytery and parish hall are faced in red brick stretcher bond with blue engineering brick copings and exaggerated arched white concrete heads to some doors and windows.

Inside, the centrally-planned interior places the altar on the second step of a circular dais beneath the lantern. The internal walls are faced in bare brick. Full-height brick piers mark out the bays of the main space, with pre-cast elliptical concrete arches opening onto the surrounding ambulatory. A concrete ring beam and timber-clad reinforced concrete raking struts rise from the top of the piers to support the central lantern. Between the struts, the roof consists of folded concrete slab construction, the inverted V-shapes clad in timber boarding. The lantern opens to the interior, its lower section exposed concrete projecting downwards as if piercing the roof with its serrated edge. The inner face of the lantern is timber, with cross braces resembling spokes and long inverted triangles of clear glazing.

The ambulatory contains shallow projections side-lit with slabs of resin-coloured geometrical glass, and houses former side altars now serving as shrines. Two chapels and an entrance porch open to the north. To the south, steps lead down to confessionals and a corridor connecting to two sacristies, beyond which lie the parish room and presbytery. The route from the main entrance to the sanctuary and the lower sanctuary step is paved in white marble; the upper sanctuary step and the remainder of the central space are carpeted; and the ambulatory is paved in dark engineering bricks. The entrance area features what was formerly the baptistery, now housing a repository with a suspended floor, while two flanking circular spaces serve as top-lit chapels dedicated to the Sacred Heart (west) and Notre Dame de Sacré Cœur (east).

The main altar is a marble slab supported on roughly-hewn granite piers and engineering brick. Originally incorporating the tabernacle, this was relocated around 1978 to a position behind the altar on a smaller matching altar with a curtained screen. Largely concealed by the screen is an organ of 1865 by J W Walker, of undetermined provenance, probably introduced around 1978. A metal corona hangs over the altar, incorporating lighting and an added suspended crucifix. Further original pendant light fittings hang from the struts, clad in metal with vertical timber slats. The nave seating consists of original bespoke curved benches arranged around the sanctuary.

Originally there were four side altars in the ambulatory, fashioned from similar materials and detailing to the main altar and flanked by cantilevered marble shelves. These now contain shrines to various saints, with standard catalogue statues. On the west side, below the shrine to St Pius X, lies the grave of Fr Coffey, marked with an inscribed marble ledgerstone.