The Parish of St Anne and St Bernard

St Anne's Church is an active Roman Catholic parish church in the Archdiocese of Liverpool. In 1999 its parish was combined with that of the Church of St Bernard. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building.

St. Anne’s story

There will be people reading this potted history of St. Anne’s church and parish who

will be able to recall many things unknown to us current parishioners. We would love

to hear from you because the rich history of our parish deserves a much fuller

presentation.

During the years before and after the last War it was said that St. Anne’s parish had the

largest Catholic population of any parish in the country. If so, things have changed

dramatically. There has been demolition on a grand scale, many of the large tenement

blocks replaced by houses and bungalows, with gardens front and back. Now we have a

very large, beautiful church, re-designed twenty years ago to respond to our change of

circumstances, with a congregation much smaller than it used to be, but diverse, multinational,

and very happy.

The church was built in 1842 by the monks of Downside Abbey. According to their

historian its building almost bankrupted the Abbey. On a date unknown, the care of the

parish passed to the monks of Ampleforth Abbey. It stayed with the monks until they

handed over the parish to the care of the Archdiocese in 1950.

Five priests served the parish at that time. Now we have half a priest, St. Anne’s now

being part of the combined parish of St. Anne and St. Bernard.

The church itself is built with beautiful local sandstone. In 1982 it was industrially

cleaned at Government expense, the grime and smoke of 120 years giving way to the

beautiful original red stone.

We believe our church to be as beautiful as any in the Archdiocese, When our website

develops further we will be able to take you on a tour of the special features of our

church.