Church of St Ambrose

Reasons for Designation

Highly decorative and liturgically advanced Roman Catholic Church of 1959-61 by Alfred Bullen and Jerzy Faczynski of Weightman and Bullen.

Details

392/0/10213
16-NOV-07

Speke
HEATHGATE AVENUE, L24
CHURCH OF ST AMBROSE(Formerly listed under CENTRAL AVENUE)

GII
Roman Catholic Church.1959-61 to the designs of Alfred Bullen of Weightman and Bullen,assisted by Jerzy Faczynski.Reinforced concrete frame clad in brown brick,with stock brick cladding to campanile.Rectangular plan with free-standing sanctuary and raised altar.Tall (84')open linked campanile and low entrance range to north,and low range serving Lady chapel to south.Flat roofs.EXTERIOR:The frame is expressed as a segmental-headed arcade with tapered pilasters,with a higher roof to the body of the church set behind it.Glazing on all four sides at upper level only,with central panels of yellow set in clear surrounds.Campanile with three sections of blind walling and open mullions to upper section,where there is a mechanically controlled bell and which is topped by an illuminated cross;to either side are entrance doors to vestibule and former baptistry area.This has clerestory glazing with stained glass panels by Gounil and Philip Brown.INTERIOR:Terrazzo floors,panelled walls and trabeated ceiling inset with pyramidal acoustic panels,the central ones in each block incorporating lights.Processional route or ambulatory under segmental arcade behind square columns.Raised sanctuary area of marble,with stone slab altar raised up three further steps.Sanctuary and altar are in their original position,although altar renewed as a single slab in line with post Vatican II thinking;now with font and pulpit to either side.The font has been moved from by the entrance;the present pulpit was probably originally the lectern.Altar rails survive at rear.Former Lady chapel with 'AVE MARIA' set into floor and stained glass panels to either side by Gounil and Philip Brown.Pews on remaining three sides of sanctuary.Raised above the entrance is the organ,on axis with the altar.Stations of the cross by Adam Kossowski.Our Lady painting and triptych carving by Jerzy Faczynski,who may have been the junior architect in charge here,as at St Mary,Leyland,already listed grade II.Wall paintings behind the altar added in the 1990s and not of special interest.St Ambrose's was built to serve the new housing estate of Speke,begun in the 1930s but largely developed in the 1950s.It claims with some justification to be the first Roman Catholic church in England completed(though not the first begun)to a rectangular plan with a free-standing altar,as Archbishop John Heenan was to recommend for Liverpool Cathedral in 1960.'The unique planning of the interior is likely to set a new pattern for church building in this country',wrote"Cathedral Record"in 1961.The church was planned from the first without a choir,making such a free plan possible.It is also a rich mixture of expensive natural materials and a consciously modern exposed concrete frame,reminiscent of the Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts,not yet built but already widely published.It is a building on an unusually broad and ambitious scale that is relatively little altered.

Sources
Catholic Building Register, Northern Edition, 1961, pp.41-3
Cathedral Record, vol.31, 1961, p.160

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

501022

Legacy System:

LBS

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