Building record 16027 - Church of St Ann, Winwick Road

<1> Historic England, 2011, The National Heritage List for England, 1161591 (Web Site). SCH6528.

Grade II* Listed, formerly the Church of St Ann. 1868-9, by John Douglas of Chester. Red brick in Flemish bond with some blue brick dressings, slate roof. High Victorian style with C13 Rhenish accent. Aisleless nave with north end and south porches, south-east tower, north vestry and apsidal chancel. The 6-bay nave, with stout buttresses, a plinth, a string-course of blue brick and a brick cornice with a nail-head band, has a gabled porch to the second bay of each side, both with broad battered clasping buttresses, a 2-centred arch chamfered in 3 orders containing a segmental-headed doorway, and a pair of small lancets in each side wall; and in most of the other bays a pair of lancet windows with roll-moulded surrounds. The south-east tower, which is the most striking feature of the design, is broad and square, clasped in the angle of the nave and chancel, and of 3 stages, with straight angle-buttresses to the south-east corner terminating with blue brick offsets at the belfry stage, and a south-west stair-turret treated as a broad clasping buttress terminating at the same level but finished with a tall conical-roofed turret rising above the parapet; a corbel table to the parapet, and a tall steeply-pitched saddle-back roof with a tiered break at its base. It has a small lancet to the 1st stage, an arcade of 3 similar windows to the 2nd stage, and coupled 2-centred arched belfry windows with chamfered surrounds and large wooden louvres. The tall semicircular apse, with buttresses to almost full height, has high 2-centred arched windows with 2 lancet lights and a circle in the head. Gabled vestry on north side, opposed to tower. INTERIOR: wide lofty nave with unusual internal buttresses between the windows spanned by 2-centred arches and carrying wall-posts to an arch-braced wagon roof with arcaded ashlaring and wind-braced purlins; blind arcading between these buttresses; chancel with slender shafts to elegantly rib-vaulted roof. Said to be heated by steam from adjoining brewery (now demolished). "An impressively forceful High Victorian piece, blunt and uncompromising" [Pevsner, BoE], effectively concentrating its principal features at the south-east corner from which it is first seen.

<2> The Historic Environment Consultancy, 2019, Heritage Statement Part 1 - The Setting of Nearby Heritage Assets: Land at Winwick Road, Warrington, Cheshire. WA2 7PF (Client Report). SCH9708.

Heritage assessment including photographs of the exterior and interior of the former church. Although the church is one of over 4,000 Victorian churces, the design of the apse and steeple of St Ann's are of interest, as is the interior fan-vaulting. The fact that the building was heated by steam from a nearby factory is unusual and innovative.