Background
It was designed by W. H. Bidlake and is now a Grade I listed building. [1]
Made of brick and decorated with stone, building started in October 1899. It was funded by the sale of the site of Christ Church, New Street which was demolished the same year to make way for shops and offices - Christchurch Buildings. That site later became Victoria Square after Christchurch Buildings were demolished in 1970. St Agatha was consecrated in 1901 by the Bishop of Worcester (Charles Gore) as Birmingham was in the diocese of Worcester until 1905 at which time Gore was made the first Bishop of Birmingham. A parish was assigned to the church in 1902 from Christ Church, Sparkbrook, and St Paul's Church, Balsall Heath. The font and only bell came from Christ Church, along with its foundation stone dated 1805. In 1959, the church hall received a licence for public worship.
The building has had an eventful history; the sanctuary end was completely destroyed by a German bomb in 1940 and the entire roof was lost in a fire in 1957. From 1940 to 1960 parts of the building were bricked off and the sense of lightness that the interior now has was temporarily lost.
The church was slightly damaged by the Birmingham Tornado on 28 July 2005. However the adjoining Ladypool Primary School was extensively damaged and lost its distinctive Martin & Chamberlain tower.
Major restoration work took place from 2002 to 2005, mostly funded by the National Heritage Lottery Board. This included the stabilisation of the tower. The restoration work was designed by Apec Architects. [2] The restored church was officially reopened in January 2005 by Prince Edward and the Countess of Wessex.
St Agatha's as a church
From its beginning St Agatha's was strongly part of the Anglo-Catholic movement. Although situated in the Diocese of Birmingham the church is under the oversight of the Bishop of Oswestry (currently Paul Thomas), the Provincial episcopal visitor and is a part of Forward in Faith. Until the 1950s there was a ring of similar churches around inner-city Birmingham - the so-called 'Biretta Belt'. Many of those churches have closed but St Agatha's itself remains open despite being in an almost entirely Muslim ward of the city. The church's priest is shared with St Barnabas' Church, Balsall Heath. [3]
Music
The church is noted for its music - supplemented by a recently restored three-manual Nicholson organ -its liturgy and diverse congregation, and is well known beyond the parish and the city.
Special services
Celebrants have included the Archbishop of York, the Most Reverend David Hope at the centenary Mass in May 2001.
Facilities
The church hall is used by the Birmingham City Amateur Boxing Club, originally Ladywood Amateur Boxing Club, founded by Frank O'Sullivan. [4]
Balsall Heath is an inner-city area of Birmingham, West Midlands, England. It has a diverse cultural mix of people and is the location of the Balti Triangle.
Sparkbrook is an inner-city area in south-east Birmingham, England. It is one of the four wards forming the Hall Green formal district within Birmingham City Council.
The Diocese of Birmingham is a diocese founded in 1905 in the Church of England's Province of Canterbury, covering the north-west of the traditional county of Warwickshire, the south-east of the traditional county of Staffordshire and the north-east of the traditional county of Worcestershire in England.
Modern-day Birmingham's cultural diversity is reflected in the wide variety of religious beliefs of its citizens. 70% of residents identified themselves as belonging to a particular faith in the 2021 Census, while 24% stated they had no religion and a further 6% did not answer the question.
The 2005 Birmingham tornado was one of the strongest tornadoes recorded in Great Britain in nearly 30 years, occurring on 28 July 2005 in the suburbs of Birmingham. It formed on a day when thunderstorms were expected to develop across the Midlands and eastern England. The tornado struck at approximately 14:30 BST in the Sparkbrook area and also affected King's Heath, Moseley and Balsall Heath as it carved a 7 kilometre-long path through the city.
William Henry Bidlake MA, FRIBA was a British architect, a leading figure of the Arts and Crafts movement in Birmingham and Director of the School of Architecture at Birmingham School of Art from 1919 until 1924.
Highgate is an area of Birmingham, England. Following the Big City Plan of February 2008, Highgate is now a district of Birmingham City Centre. This area is regarded as the site of the original Anglo-Saxon settlement which gave the city of Birmingham its name.
Clement George St Michael Parker was a British Anglican bishop who served as Bishop of Aston and later Bishop of Bradford.
Christ Church is in Crewe Road, Wheelock, Cheshire, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Congleton, the archdeaconry of Macclesfield, and the diocese of Chester. Its benefice is united with those of St John the Evangelist, Sandbach Heath, and St Philip, Hassall Green.
Herbert Arthur Jones was Dean of Manchester in the third quarter of the 20th century.
Christ Church, Birmingham, was a parish church in the Church of England on Colmore Row, Birmingham from 1805 to 1899.
The Catholic Church of St Edward, Selly Park, Birmingham is a Roman Catholic parish located in Selly Park in the Archdiocese of Birmingham.
Bordesley Hall was an 18th century manor house near Bordesley, Birmingham, which stood in a 15 hectare park south of the Coventry Road in an area between what is now Small Heath and Sparkbrook. The Georgian house was the successor to an earlier medieval moated manor.
St Paul's Church, Balsall Heath is a parish church in the Church of England in Birmingham.
St Barnabas' is a parish church in the Church of England in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, England.
St Jude's Church, Birmingham was a parish church in the Church of England in Birmingham.
St Patrick's Church, Bordesley was a parish church in the Church of England in Birmingham.
St Thomas in the Moors, Balsall Heath is a former Church of England parish church in Balsall Heath, Birmingham.
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