Alderney Churches

St Anne's Church, Victoria Street

The island's only Anglican church is St Anne's situated on a hill between Victoria Street and La Vallee.

Built to the design of the famous English architect Sir George Scott, it is one of the finest Victorian buildings in the Channel Islands. The cost of the building was financed by Reverend Canon John Le Mesurier,  son of the last Hereditary Governor of Alderney.

Consecrated in 1850 it is part of the Deanery of Guernsey and supervised by the Bishop of Winchester. Like much of the island, the church suffered from the German Occupation and was used as a general store during the war. A machine-gun post was set up in the belfry and the walls still display gunshot scars.  As most of the pews were also removed,  a considerable amount of restoration work had to be carried out and completed in 1953.

The church has six bells which are rung for Sunday services . The bells were removed by the Germans and four were sent to Cherbourg to be melted down for munitions. They were subsequently identified after the War and returned to the island. They together with the two bells remaining in Alderney, were sent to England for re-casting and then re-installed.

Methodist Church, Butes Road 

Methodism arrived in Alderney in March 1787 through a young Irishman by the name of Adam Clarke, on the direct instructions of John Wesley. Later Jean De Queterville, a Jerseyman continued the work. John Wesley visited the island that August in an un-scheduled stop after being blown off course on his way to Guernsey. He preached from the beach a Braye. The first Methodist church was built in 1790. Amice Olivier became the first Alderney-born man to be ordained as a Methodist minister. 

By 1860, when the Breakwater and 'Government Works' were nearing completion,  the membership of the Methodist church was 162 at a time when the population stood at nearly 5,000. When the workforce left the Island, the church membership started to decline only to pick up again at the end of the nineteenth century when the British Government stationed a garrison in Alderney. In 1940 almost all the population was evacuated, and the Island occupied by German forces.  The Methodist Church building on the Butes was used by the occupying forces as a place of worship during the war. When the population returned to the island in 1946 they had their own homes to rebuild and church properties to restore. The costs of maintenance and repair eventually proved too much, so apart from the Church and Schoolroom at Butes, and the Manse, the rest was sold. In 1987 the church celebrated the 200th Anniversary of John Wesley's visit to the Island and a set of stamps was issued by the Guernsey Post Office, one of them showing John Wesley preaching at Braye.

The church  is now led by Mrs Irene Day.  Back in 1787,  Jean De Queterville  said that if ten people could be found who would join the church, then he would become their minister. Ten did so and 200 years later, Methodist traditions continue in Alderney. In 2011, the church is celebrating 160 years of the Butes Methodish Church. The church is heavily involved with the community and offers a variety of activities in support.

Salvation Army, High Street

Situated at the High Street, the Salvation Army has an active congregation and meet in the hall first used by the Methodists in 1842.

St. Anne & St. Mary Magdalen, Roman Catholic Church, Braye Road

The first Catholic church was built around the same time as the Anglican church in the 1850s at a time when the island's population was boosted by the resident troops and Irish quarrymen.