A number of place names within Waverley - most famously Bondi - have been based on words derived from Aboriginal languages of the Sydney region.

[2] By the mid nineteenth century the traditional owners of this land had typically either moved inland in search of food and shelter, or had died as the result of European disease or confrontation with British colonisers.

[1] From 1895 the Catholic Church was present in the Bondi area on land gifted to the Franciscan order at the corner of O'Brien and Simpson Streets.

Father Daniel O'Sullivan was appointed priest in 1926 to the new parish and oversaw the establishment of several major church buildings during his fifteen years of stewardship.

The practice of Fowell and McConnel was established in 1927 when the pair entered a competition for the design of Tamworth War Memorial Town Hall for which they were awarded second place.

[4] They were more successful in winning the competition for the BMA building in Sydney's Macquarie Street, which also eventually won them the first RIBA medal to be awarded in Australia.

[4][1] Fowell and McConnel designed a church to accommodate 1,000 parishioners with separate committee rooms, campanile and cloister to be added when money became available.

The north end of the building was enclosed by a timber framed wall, faced with fibre cement sheeting that marked the position of the future sanctuary.

[1] St Anne's Church was awarded the Sir John Sulman Medal by the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 1935.

But with very beautiful Australiana in its detailing".The church is featured in A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture, where it is presented as an example of the "Inter-War Romanesque" style.

There it is described as a "nobly scaled design influenced by French examples such as Albi Cathedral" and Joseph Fowell listed as one of the style's "key practitioners".

The textured red brick façade contrasts with the sandstone plinth, entry portico, door and window surrounds and parapet copings.

To alleviate problems of echo on the face brick the rear internal wall of the gallery is built with honeycomb brickwork with the interstices backed with small squares of an acoustic material, Celotex.

[1][4] The apses on the north side were not built in the initial work of the 1930s but were constructed in the 1960s under the supervision of Joseph Fowell, one of the original architects, and form an harmonious addition.

A half dome over the nave apse is lined with timbers in a herringbone radiating arrangement supported on a semi circular sandstone arcade.

[1] Although the main body of the church was constructed in 1934, the second stage including final altar and apses were not completed until 1964, under the supervision of one of the original architects, Joseph Fowell.

[1] As at 2 February 2004, St Anne's Church is of State significance as a fine and representative example of the Inter-war Romanesque style.

A Catholic church largely built in the 1930s but completed in the 1960s to the competition-winning design of Joseph Fowell and Kenneth McConnel, the decorative scheme is restrained but features highly crafted timber, brick and sandstone detailing.

It has a careful integration of furniture and fittings also largely designed by the architects that includes an ingenious and possibly unique ventilation system (recently dismantled but stored onsite).

Together with the adjacent school buildings the Church forms a precinct that has served the spiritual and educational needs of the local Catholic community for several generations.

As winner of the Sulman Award for architecture in 1935, the church also offers historical insights into questions of taste and aesthetics in Sydney in the 1930s.

The prominent Sydney architect Joseph Fowell, considered one of the key exponents of the "Interwar Romanesque" style in Australia, is also associated with the building for presiding over both stages of design and construction thirty years apart.

St Anne's Church is of state aesthetic significance as a fine example of the Interwar Romanesque style of architecture.

[5] The aesthetic and technical excellence of St Anne's Shrine was recognised immediately upon completion of the first stage of construction in the form of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects' Sulman Award for 1935.

[3]: 8  The Romanesque style has been described as a means by which architects of the period could "move cautiously towards the uncluttered simplicity of mass and detail favoured by the modernists".

The church illustrates typical characteristics of the style including: use of piers or buttresses, large entrance arches, low pitched gabled roofs, elaborately detailed brickwork and squat massing of the architectural volumes.

[7]: 195–6  The size and architectural massing of the church can readily be appreciated in its open corner setting, and its relatively monumental scale makes it an important landmark in the locality.

Its contribution to understandings of 1930s taste and aesthetics is enhanced by it being the recipient of the Sulman Award of 1935, and by it being considered a primary example of the Interwar Romanesque style.

This ingenious, environmentally sustainable and possibly unique system of temperature modification has been dismantled, however all the parts are stored on site and capable of reinstatement, or study.