It was built to serve the expanding population but also as a memorial to Robert Raikes on the 100th anniversary of the 1780 Sunday school movement.

It was funded by a grant from the Incorporated Church Building Society and donations including a large gift from D.H.D Burr.

However, even though the original design was not completed the church was still a large building with room for around 600 people in the nave mostly seated on benches.

In 1914, the space to the north of the altar was fitted out as a lady chapel and in 1919, a World War One memorial was constructed outside the main entrance of the church, It was dedicated before a crowd of 3,000 people.

Another refurbishment in the 1980s, saw the west end of the nave converted into a hall, kitchen, meeting room and toilets.

In 1896, difficulties in raising the £6,000 needed to build the church were encountered due to a smallpox epidemic and the outbreak of the Boer War.

The aisles and nave were extended westwards by two bays, and the west front of the building was added and included a bell-cot, two porches and a baptistery.

[4] There is a memorial on the rear wall of the church to workers of the Morelands Match Factory who died during World War One.

[8] The church is built in the early English Gothic style with lancet windows and pointed arches in the nave.

It is built in limestone and consists of a sanctuary at the east end, two north vestries, an undivided aisled and clerestoried chancel and nave with east bell-cot, the first stage of a south tower, a west porch, and short outer aisles.

[4] The First World War memorial in the churchyard consists of an octagonal stone pulpit set on a plinth.

It originally consisted of a chancel with north vestry rooms, an organ chamber, a south chapel and an aisled and clerestoried nave.