St Catherine of Siena, Richmond

St Catherine of Siena is an Anglican church in the Richmond district of Sheffield. It stands on the site of an earlier temporary chapel built in 1935 to serve the growing Woodthorpe estate. The parish was created in 1949 when the local population had already passed 10 000. Frederick Etchells first drew plans for a new church seating 500, but funds were diverted from war-damaged St Phillip’s in Attercliffe. Basil Spence took over the commission and, with architect Anthony Blee, produced a design of plain brick with narrow windows inspired by the Saarinen brothers’ church in Minneapolis. The church was built between 1958 and 1959 and opened on 5 December that year. Its layout includes a brick nave, an attached hall, a glazed passage leading to a bell tower, and a detached vicarage. The black metal altar has a timber top, and the limestone font shows fossil inclusions. A sculpture by Ronald Pope was added to the tower in 1966, and an organ was installed soon after. The building’s plain style and narrow windows give it a restrained mid-20th-century character. Inside, the church keeps a Catholic style of worship and does not ordain women. Congregations stayed small for decades, averaging only thirty worshippers, but began to grow in the late 1980s. A major restoration finished in 1997, after which the church was listed at Grade II. The surroundings are quiet residential streets, and the building remains a local landmark in the Richmond area.