St Augustine of Canterbury

Introduction

St Augustine of Canterbury church in Meir, within the Archdiocese of Birmingham, was designed by Sandy & Norris of Stafford in a stripped Romanesque style.

History

The pulpit is semi-circular and uses polished green marble. Behind the high altar is a tall, quasi-Art Deco reredos with a panelled canopy above. In 1934 the priest at Longton bought Highfields house in Meir and a resident priest was appointed. A church dedicated to St Augustine of Canterbury was opened at Christmas 1934 in a converted stable building.

After a new school was built in 1937, its hall was used as a church until 1949, when the church returned to the converted stables, by then extended with a Nissen hut. The west end and sacristies were completed in 1959. A reordering took place about 1996 when the marble high altar was brought forward.

Architecture and furnishings

The church is built in buff brick under a Roman tile roof, constructed 1957-9 to a longitudinal plan. The western tower and flanking flat roof structures were built slightly later in the second construction phase. The church has a nave and sanctuary under one continuous roof, with passage aisles that have flat roofs behind parapets. The five-bay nave opens into the passage aisles through tall, plain round arches rising from bare red brick square piers.

The aisle windows are tall single lights under round heads, while shorter clerestory windows are blocked. The triple window over the west door is deeply recessed, giving the tower a highly modelled appearance. The walls are plastered and painted a light cream. The sanctuary consists of one bay with a short recess in its far wall. The ceiling is continuous over both nave and sanctuary and has deeply recessed square panelling.