Catholic church from the 1950s receives £1 million government grant for new roof

Thursday, October 15th, 2026 @ 4:30 pm

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_{Source: Elena Curti, The Tablet}

The church in Wallsend heads a list of nine Catholic churches to receive grants announced today by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

Our Lady and St Columba, in the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, will receive £1 million for a new roof. The architect Vincente G. Stienlet (1910-90) was the second member of an architectural dynasty spanning three generations. The practice, Pascal Stienlet and Son, was based in Newcastle and renowned for designing cinemas, theatres and places of worship all over Northern England.

The architectural and historical review of Catholic churches in England and Wales, Taking Stock says Our Lady’s is “a bold and impressive design of the 1950s, blending Modern Perpendicular Gothic, Scandinavian and Art Deco elements”. The church was built by a highly skilled local workforce who faced the building inside and out in high-quality bricks just two inches thick. The church’s louvred bell tower with its copper roof is a much-loved local landmark. It was listed Grade II in 2016 following the Taking Stock review.

Also to benefit from the grants are two churches in the Archdiocese of Liverpool, St Matthew, Clubmoor (1930), which receives £810,000 and St Anthony of Egypt, Scotland Road which has been awarded £775,228.

St Matthew’s was the first church by F.X. Velarde who studied at Liverpool School of Architecture and went on to design some of the most distinctive and original Catholic places of worship of the twentieth century.

St Anthony of Egypt (1833) is a large, early Gothic Revival building on the main road north of Liverpool. It is one of several city churches that served poor Irish families who arrived in large numbers from the 1840s in the wake of the great famine. The church has an enormous brick-vaulted crypt which runs the length of the church and contains around 700 burials.

The grants are the first to be awarded from the new Places of Worship Renewal Fund, designed to support historic places of worship, range from nationally renowned minsters to churches and synagogues in areas of the greatest need. A total of 51 recipients will share over £18 million.

Sophie Andreae, vice chair of the Patrimony Committee of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, said:

“We are delighted that nine Catholic churches in England are to receive funding from the government’s new Places of Worship Renewal Fund administered by Historic England. All these churches, ranging in date from the Victorian period right up until the 1960s, are key local landmarks. Their congregations play an important part in their respective communities so ensuring church fabric is not failing and becoming a burden will give a great boost all those involved. We are so pleased the government has introduced this new grant scheme to support listed churches with urgent capital repairs.”