St Anne's

Introduction

St Anne's Church in Birmingham was founded by Cardinal John Henry Newman, who established a chapel in a former distillery in 1849. The congregation of John Henry Newman comprised Irish immigrants who fled the Great Famine of 1847 and settled in Deritend.

History

The congregation under Cardinal Newman relocated to Edgbaston in 1852. Between 1852 and 1859 the parish in Alcester Street was served by Father John Wise and Father Thomas More.

The church was designed by Albert Vicars of Vicars and O'Neill, London, and constructed by Barker and Son of Handsworth between 1883-4. The old church (Gin Distillery) became a school until 1938. The parish was placed in the care of the Oblate Fathers on the death of Canon Villiers on 19th October 1938, and the first Oblates arrived on 2nd November 1938.

In the late C20, the stone pulpit was removed, though a fragment remains in a slightly set back position, and the communion rails were also removed except for a section between the sanctuary and the southern side chapel. Around the year 2000, a new decorative stencilled paint scheme was applied to the sanctuary and side chapels, the nave piers were painted, and a new entrance porch was erected on the north elevation. J. R. R. Tolkien worshipped at the church when he lived in Moseley.

Architecture and furnishings

The church is constructed of red brick with blue brick detailing, limestone dressings and a slate roof. The church is in the Early English Gothic Revival style with lancet windows, shallow buttresses and polychrome brick detailing. The interior has a lofty nave with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, flanked by aisles with an arcade of circular piers with gothic arches linked by gilded bosses. The church retains its C19 pews in the nave and aisles.

The northern aisle houses two timber confessionals, each containing four separate booths behind timber doors with cusped detailing and trefoil heads. A side chapel dedicated to the Sacred Heart, with a C19 gothic altar and altar table, is located to the left of the sanctuary, separated by a section of the former communion rail. The Lady Chapel, to the north of the sanctuary, features the original C19 gothic altar and altar table with replacement statuary. The reredos beneath the rose window has blind gothic arcading and is a fragment of the C19 scheme. A section of the C19 stone pulpit survives to the left of the altar and forms the ambo.

Parish life

The parish is linked with the Archdiocese of Birmingham, of which it is part. The parish is linked with Vatican News, reporting on the Pope and the Catholic world. The parish is linked with the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Baptisms, marriages and instructions on the Catholic Faith are by appointment. The parish provides a prayer for a sick person on its website.