The Presbyterian Church on Toxteth’s Princes Road, known as the Welsh Cathedral, has been empty for more than thirty years
04:00, 05 Jul 2026
Welsh Presbyterian Church on Princes Road in Toxteth(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
People living next to a ruined Liverpool landmark say rats are pouring out of the building and into their homes. The Welsh Presbyterian Church on Toxteth‘s Princes Road, known as the Welsh Cathedral, has been empty for more than thirty years.
No remedial work has been carried out on the landmark for several years, and the building has been without a large section of its roof for three years. Neighbours told the ECHO rats are crossing from the site into their homes from nests in the dilapidated church, which is frequently being used as a “dumping ground” by flytippers.
A gaping hole in the roof greets thousands of drivers each day as they make their way from South Liverpool to the city centre. No plans have been submitted to the council by the church’s current owners, who purchased the site in 2022 and promised to restore it “to its former glory”. This week, the ECHO tracked down the owners of Toxteth’s ruined Presbyterian Church.
Rats, flytipping, and a roof in our front garden
The Welsh Presbyterian Church on Princes Road, Toxteth, lost its temporary roof in a storm in 2023(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Abeera Shoaib, 27, lives in the shadow of the church, once Liverpool’s tallest building. In 2023, the temporary timber and tar roof was blown off the nave in high winds. Abeera and her neighbours told the ECHO the roof crashed into the front gardens of their terraced houses.
Abeera said: “We think that it’s taking too long for them to fix the state of this church. It’s taken so long that people are taking advantage and using it as a bin, throwing rubbish over the fence.
“We see it happening. Furniture that people can’t be bothered to give away, they just throw it in the church.
“But our main concern is the amount of rats and mice we have seen coming out of the church. One appeared in our living room. It’s really difficult for us. We’ve tried everything to get rid of them.”
When contacted by the ECHO, the owners said that the roof was replaced in 2005 by the council (18 years before it fell off while uner their stewardship), and added that issues around rodents had not been raised directly with them. The owners have employed security, erected fences, and said that the site is cleared annually.
Who owns the Welsh Cathedral?
Welsh Presbyterian Church on Princes Road in Toxteth, Liverpool(Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
The Presbyterian Church has been vacant since the early 1990s after being abandoned by the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star, a Nigerian religious order that purchased it in 1982. In 2002, the council served an urgent works notice on the Brotherhood as it was feared part of the church would collapse.
The council spent the next seven years making repairs to the church chasing the Brotherhood in court to cover their costs. The Brotherhood eventually paid the council £380,000 in 2009 and sold the church to the local authority for £50,000 later that year.
In 2013, the church was sold to Merseyside Building Preservation Trust for £1. A £7m creative development was floated but came to nothing, before plans were submitted by Stephen Yip in 2018 to turn the building into a headquarters for the KIND children’s charity. The plans fell through after a failure to secure funding.
The church was sold to Audsley Holdings Ltd in 2022. Since then, no planning permissions have been sought by the developers, who used the building as collateral against a loan last year, according to publicly available filings.
This week, the ECHO tracked down the owners to ask why this prominent Liverpool landmark is being left to rot. Audsley Holdings is run by four people: two NHS doctors, a solicitor, and a hotelier.
Smashed windows of the Presbyterian Church, Princes Road, Toxteth(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Dr Tatiana Tchikhiaeva, an NHS GP, dermatologist and magistrate from St Helens, has previously travelled to the Amazon to provide medical care to people in need and provided healthcare to pilgrims travelling to Lourdes. She is co-director of the Regency Hotel Group, alongside fellow Audsley directors Mathew Berridge-James and Adonis Michael.
Dr Mustafa Abu Rabia, an NHS consultant in geriatric medicine from Eccles, is a director of The Crossroad Group, which operates five care homes across South Yorkshire and Norfolk, as well as Audsley Holdings, which the ECHO understands to be a firm explicitly set up for the purchase of the Presbyterian Church on Princes Road.
Solicitor Adonis Michael, from Knowsley, and Mathew Berridge-James, from St Helens, make up the number. Mr Berridge-James is listed on Companies House as director of several Liverpool-based hotel firms.
The ECHO visited the home addresses of the directors, and spoke with Mr Berridge-James and Dr Tchikhiaeva. Mr Berridge-James told the ECHO: “We are trying. People feel that nothing is being done about it. The building will be saved. The walls are 8ft thick. Maybe the Sunday School will have to go down but the main building will be saved.
“In the next six to eight weeks, an application will be going in [to the council]. I am confident that this time we will be pushing at an open door.
“The architects are dealing with it now, and we’ve been meeting with heritage consultants. Going through another sale would slow things down, and there is no faster route than us putting in an application.”
The Welsh Presbyterian Church on Princes Road, Toxteth(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Mr Berridge-James said the group initially planned to build a GP surgery, specialist ADHD clinic, and a pharmacy at the site. After being unsuccessful obtaining lottery funding for the project in 2024, the owners say plans have now changed, and that the next application will be residential, including affordable housing. He added: “We will be restoring the roof and taking it back to what it was.”
Mr Berridge-James blamed red tape for a four-year delay in submitting plans, saying: “You’re walking into closed doors and red tape constantly. If some doors opened we’d love to go through them, and if anyone says otherwise, they’re wrong.”
Dr Tchikhiaeva told the ECHO: “If the local authority will work with us then we’d love to go through with it. We come to this with good intentions.”
‘If you won’t, hand it over to someone who will’
Cllr Nick Small(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Cllr Nick Small, cabinet member for growth and economy said he was “frustrated” that people “see the council as an easy target to blame” on issues such as the Welsh Cathedral. He said: “The owners need to consider their options. If they are not going to bring a planning application forward themselves, then they should hand it over to someone who will.
“They should be looking at all options because it’s in a prominent location, it’s a fantastic building that means a lot to the city, and it could be turned into something really special.”
One allegation frequently levelled at developers who leave listed, heritage buildings to languish, exposed to the elements, is that they are waiting for them to fall down. The owners of Toxteth’s Welsh Cathedral deny that this is their intention.
Cllr Small acknowledged this as a problem in Liverpool, saying: “We’ve got more listed buildings than anywhere outside of London. And there is a problem in the combination of having so many listed buildings alongside a viability gap that exists in much of the country outside of the capital.
“It’s about getting the balance right between a heritage policy that protects the history and story of the city and supporting organisations and businesses to come up with sustainable end uses. I believe we have the right policy framework in place to achieve that, though some organisations are doing it better than others.”
The Welsh Presbyterian Church on Princes Road, Toxteth, in 2018. Bill Maynard onlooking. (Image: Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo)
Speaking generally about issues surrounding derelict buildings, Cllr Small said the council had “limited powers” in cases such as these, including serving repair notices and carrying out necessary repairs and seeking to recover costs, but added: “In a lot of cases, we simply don’t have the budget to take on those works. Furthermore, you have to ask if that is truly the best value for the city.”
He added: “What we want to see is a situation where development plans are brought forward to fruition, with companies introducing sustainable uses that stack up financially. That takes the issue away from the council, brings the building back into use, and delivers something productive for the city.”
‘It makes my heart sink every time I go past’
Fabian Tanas, 45, speaking to the ECHO outside the church(Image: Liverpool Echo)
Elena Dinoi, 46, from Toxteth, spoke to the ECHO on Princes Avenue about the church. She said: “It’s pretty sad. I moved here 15 years ago and my first house was actually right opposite the church. It’s such beautiful architecture, but it’s now in a state of despair and ugliness, and it just makes my heart sink every time I go past it.”
Fabian Tanas, 45, said: “It’s sad, because it’s such a beautiful building, but obviously not at this moment of time. It would be nice if someone could actually do something about it.”
Speaking of the current owners, he said: “It’s been such a long time that if they really wanted to do something about it, they would have done it by now, I would imagine.”
Alex Germain, 51, said: “I’ve lived here 25 years and it’s never been good-looking in any of that time. It just seems to have got worse. It’s pretty much in keeping with the general downturn in architectural heritage in the city. I’m not surprised to see it in that state.
Elena Dinoi, 46, and Alex Germain, 51, on Princes Avenue, Toxteth(Image: Liverpool Echo)
“The situation with the Cavern, the situation with the Overhead Railway, you name it, any of the cool features of Liverpool have been messed with, and not usually in a good way.”
He added: “A lot of the newer architecture you see looks very much thrown together at the last minute, and they don’t care what it really looks like. It’s all about short-term profits.”
Of potential plans for the church, he said: “I’m afraid I’m quite cynical about it. I’ll believe it when I see it. I think a lot of people feel like that.”
A spokesperson for The National Lottery Heritage Fund said: “An expression of interest was submitted to us by Audsley Holdings in 2024 regarding the Welsh Cathedral in Toxteth. This is a pre-application process which enables us to advise on whether a project is suitable, and likely to be a strong candidate for National Lottery funding, before a full application is made. Applications are welcome on an ongoing basis and are considered across the whole financial year on their merit.
“The project outline submitted did not meet the criteria for funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund in its current form. We provided feedback following the submission.
“Further information about our expression of interest process can be found here on our website.”