St Paul's Methodist Church, Didsbury

Last updated

St Paul's Didsbury
Didsbury Methodist Church (4).JPG
The spire of St Paul's Didsbury
Greater Manchester UK location map 2.svg
Red pog.svg
St Paul's Didsbury
Location of St Paul's in Greater Manchester
53°24′47″N2°13′49″W / 53.4130059°N 2.230219°W / 53.4130059; -2.230219
Location781 Wilmslow Road, Manchester M20 2RW
Country United Kingdom
Denomination Former Methodist Church
History
Former name(s)St Paul's Methodist Church, Didsbury
Status Former church
Founded1877
Dedication St. Paul the Apostle
Events1990: converted to office space
Architecture
Functional status Office conversion
Heritage designationGrade II [1]
Designated3 October 1974
Architect(s) H.H. Vale
Style Gothic Revival
Groundbreaking 1875
Completed1877
Construction cost£20,000
Closed1987
Specifications
Materials Sandstone
Administration
DistrictManchester and Stockport District

St Paul's Methodist Church is a former Methodist church in the Manchester suburb of Didsbury. The building was designed by the architect H.H. Vale as a church for the nearby Wesleyan Theological Institution and opened in 1877. The building was converted into an office space in 1990. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. [1]

Contents

History

St Paul's Church was built as a memorial to the local philanthropist and MP, James Heald of Parrs Wood. [2] It was designed by the Liverpudlian architect H.H. Vale, who at the time was also collaborating with Cornelius Sherlock on the design of the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. During the project, Vale committed suicide, and the church was completed by T D Barry & Sons. Construction lasted from 1875 to 1877. [3] [4]

Architecture

The original interior of St Pauls Church St Pauls Church Interior, Didsbury (1) (26414594281).jpg
The original interior of St Pauls Church

Built in the Victorian Gothic style, Vale's church displays freely interpreted elements of Early English and Geometrical Decorated Gothic architecture. The layout is cruciform with a belfry and steeple on the south-west corner. The stonework is sandstone and architectural elements typical of the style are used throughout, such as lancet windows and foliar decoration, with dormer windows along the nave. [3] [5]

The interior is noted for its arcades of polished Aberdeen granite and Irish marble columns with carved capitals, encaustic tiled floors, a painted panelled barrel roof, richly carved stonework which features fruit and foliage inhabited with animals and birds, a stone pulpit resting on granite shafts, a baptismal font of Caen stone and a marble reredos. The interior walls are of Hollington stone. The church also includes several wall monuments to "tutors of this college". [3] [5] [6]

The office conversion, which was carried out by the firm Downs & Variava in 1990, has been criticised favourably; the insertion of mezzanine floors is regarded as sympathetic to the spacious interior by the retention of the area under the crossing to roof height. [3]

Modern use

The building is occupied today by a pipeline simulation & leak detection company, Atmos International.

Present-day church

Although the Victorian church building has now been put to secular use, Christian worship continues on the site at the neighbouring Didsbury Methodist Church, a small brick building dating from 1961. [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Ann's Church, Manchester</span> Parish church in Manchester, England

St Ann's Church is a Church of England parish church in Manchester, England. Although named after St Anne, it also pays tribute to the patron of the church, Ann, Lady Bland. St Ann's Church is a Grade I listed building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edgar Wood Centre</span> Church building in Manchester, England

The Edgar Wood Centre is a former Church of Christ, Scientist building in Victoria Park, Manchester, England. The church was designed by Edgar Wood in 1903. Nikolaus Pevsner considered it "the only religious building in Lancashire that would be indispensable in a survey of twentieth century church design in all England". It is a Grade I listed building and has been on the Heritage at Risk Register published by Historic England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Church of St James, Didsbury</span> Church

St James, Didsbury, on Stenner Lane, is a Grade II* Church of England church in the Manchester suburb of Didsbury and with Emmanuel church is part of the parish of St James and Emmanuel, Didsbury.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Church of St Mary, Hulme</span>

The Church of St Mary, Upper Moss Lane, Hulme, Manchester, is a Gothic Revival former church by J. S. Crowther built in 1853–58. It was designated a Grade II* listed building on 3 October 1974.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Didsbury Campus</span>

The Didsbury Campus on Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, Manchester, England, originally a private estate, was part of the Manchester Metropolitan University; the oldest building on the site dated to around 1785. It became a theological college for the Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1842, about the same time as a chapel which later became part of the college was built. These buildings are now all listed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parrs Wood House</span> English country house in Manchester, United Kingdom

Parrs Wood House is an 18th-century Georgian villa in the Parrs Wood area of Didsbury, Manchester, England. It was described by Pevsner as "a poorer man's Heaton Hall." It was designated a Grade II* listed building on 25 February 1952.

Joseph Stretch Crowther was an English architect who practised in Manchester. His buildings are mainly located in Manchester, Cheshire and Cumbria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nugent Cachemaille-Day</span> English architect

Nugent Francis Cachemaille-Day (1896–1976), often referred to as NF Cachemaille-Day, was an English architect who designed some of the most "revolutionary" 20th-century churches in the country. His Church of St Nicholas, Burnage has been called "a milestone in the history of church architecture in England." He was a leading British exponent of Expressionist architecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Margaret's Church, Halliwell</span> Church in Greater Manchester, England

St Margaret's Church is in Lonsdale Road, Halliwell, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Bolton, the archdeaconry of Bolton, and the diocese of Manchester. Its benefice is united with that of Christ Church, Heaton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grade I listed churches in Greater Manchester</span>

Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England. It was created by the Local Government Act 1972, and consists of the metropolitan boroughs of Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan and the cities of Manchester and Salford. This is a complete list of the Grade I listed churches in the metropolitan county as recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Buildings are listed by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on the recommendation of English Heritage. Grade I listed buildings are defined as being of "exceptional interest, sometimes considered to be internationally important"; only 2.5 per cent of listed buildings are included in this grade.

William Hill was an English architect who practised from offices in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England.

Edwin Hugh Shellard was an English architect who practised in Manchester, being active between 1844 and 1864. Most of his works are located in Northwest England, in what is now Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Cheshire, and Derbyshire. He was mainly an ecclesiastical architect, and gained contracts to design at least 13 churches for the Church Building Commission, these churches being known as Commissioners' churches. Most of his designs were in Gothic Revival style, usually Early English or Decorated, but he also experimented in the Perpendicular style. He employed the Romanesque Revival style in his additions to St Mary's Church, Preston. The National Heritage List for England shows that at least 23 of his new churches are designated as listed buildings, four of them at Grade II*. The authors of the Buildings of England series consider that his finest work is St John's Minster in Preston, Lancashire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Bell (British architect)</span> British architect

Charles Bell FRIBA (1846–99) was a British architect who designed buildings in the United Kingdom, including over 60 Wesleyan Methodist chapels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Hill Vale</span> British architect

Henry Hill Vale was a British architect who was active in North West England in the late 19th century. He was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, into a Warwickshire family, and studied under the Liverpudlian architect Henry Roberts.

Tottington is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, Greater Manchester, England, and the area also includes the villages of Walshaw and Greenmount and the surrounding countryside. The area is unparished, and contains 33 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, two are listed at Grade II*, the middle grade, and the others are at Grade II, the lowest grade. The area is partly agricultural and partly residential, and its listed buildings include farmhouses and farm buildings, private houses and associated structures, an ancient cross, churches and associated structures, a village lock-up, and schools.

Middleton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England, and it is unparished. The town and the surrounding countryside contain 45 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, one is listed at Grade I, the highest of the three grades, seven are at Grade II*, the middle grade, and the others are at Grade II, the lowest grade. Until the coming of the Industrial Revolution Middleton was a village, then came the industries of silk, cotton and coal. The oldest listed buildings consist of a church and vicarage, country houses, a school, a public house, and a bridge. The Rochdale Canal passes through the area, and locks and a bridge on it are listed. The later listed buildings include more churches, houses and schools, a drinking fountain, a bank, a club, a cotton mill, a park feature, and war memorials. The architect Edgar Wood lived in the town and he, sometimes with his partner Henry Sellars, designed some of the later listed buildings.

Salford is a city in the City of Salford Metropolitan Borough, Greater Manchester, England. The city, which includes the suburbs of Broughton, Charlestown, Kersal, Ordsall, Pendleton, and Weaste, contains 195 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, four are listed at Grade I, the highest of the three grades, nine are at Grade II*, the middle grade, and the others are at Grade II, the lowest grade.

Manchester is a city in Northwest England. The M20 postcode area of the city includes the suburbs of Didsbury and Withington. This postcode area contains 66 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, four are listed at Grade II*, the middle of the three grades, and the others are at Grade II, the lowest grade. The area is mainly residential, and most of the listed buildings are houses and associated structures. The other listed buildings include churches and structures in churchyards, hotels and public houses, civic buildings, buildings in the Didsbury Campus of Manchester Metropolitan University, a former hospital and its lodges, banks, a clock tower, a school, a milestone and a war memorial.

References

  1. 1 2 Historic England. "Didsbury Methodist Church of St Paul (1254966)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 15 February 2017.
  2. France, E.; Woodall, T.F. (1976). A new history of Didsbury. Didsbury, Manchester: E.J. Morten. p. 177. ISBN   0859720357.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Hartwell, Hyde & Pevsner 2004, p. 443.
  4. 1 2 "Who Lives in a Church Like This?". TBWA\Manchester. 14 January 2015. Archived from the original on 15 February 2017. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
  5. 1 2 Good Stuff. "Didsbury Methodist Church of St Paul - Manchester - Manchester - England". British Listed Buildings. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
  6. "Wesleyan College Chapel Didsbury Near Manchester – Mr H.H. Vale FRIBA, Architect, Liverpool". The British Architect: A Journal of Architecture and the Accessory Arts. 2: 185. 1 January 1874. Retrieved 23 February 2017.

Bibliography