History/Background

St Agatha’s Church is a red brick basilica of 1894, built for the famous Anglo-Catholic priest Father Robert Dolling, by Joseph Henry Ball, a pupil of Alfred Waterhouse.The grand Italianate interior is enriched with marble, alabaster and carved stone. The centrepiece, however, is a unique sgraffito mural designed and executed by Haywood Sumner, a friend and disciple of William Morris. Commissioned in 1901, the coloured plaster mural covers the complete apsidal east end of what is probably the finest example of a late 19th Century "Early christian" style basilica.

· Listed Grade II* (Grade two star)

· The largest Sgraffito mural in England

A distinguished collection of furnishings including work by:-

Sir Ninian Comper, Randoll Blacking

Victor Heal, Charles Eamer Kempe

Norman Shaw, Martin Travers

Sir Walter Tapper, Sebastian Pugin Powell

Many English and continental furnishings and fittings from the17thcentury to the early 20th century.

An outstanding collection of embroidered vestments

A fine collection of English and continental church plate.

(The vestments and the plate are not kept in the church and prior arrangement must be made for a viewing.)