Trail:

Manchester's Churches and Faiths

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Manchester, St Wilfrid (R.C.), Hulme

As Victoria's reign began the new GothicGlossary Term principles of A. W. N. Pugin's church of St Wilfrid in Hulme of 1842 pointed to the future. J. S. Crowther was one of Manchester's most serious students of GothicGlossary Term and his high and noble churches are amongst the best in Manchester of their day, including St Benedict, Ardwick (1880)and St Mary, Hulme(1856-8).

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Manchester, Holy Name of Jesus, Chorlton-on-Medlock

Of RomanGlossary Term Catholic churches J. A. Hansom's daring Church of the Holy Name of Jesus, Chorlton-on-Medlock, retains an unusually good range of contemporary furnishings, while the idiosyncratic St Mary, Mulberry Street by Weightman & Hadfield and E.W. Pugin's St Francis, Gorton are both of more than local interest.

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Manchester, Synagogue, Cheetham Hill Road

Manchester in the late C19 was also the home of the largest Jewish community in Victorian England, London excepted, concentrated in the streets around Cheetham Hill, where the former Sephardic Synagogue of 1874-5 by Edward Salomons survives. It is an exceptionally rich and well-preserved example of a synagogue in the Moorish style which is now home to Manchester's Jewish Museum.

One of the most original buildings of its day, Edgar Wood's extraordinary First Church of Christ Scientist (1903-04), is tucked away in the suburbs on Daisy Bank Road, Fallowfield. It is a brilliant work of great individuality which speaks for the spirit of an age searching for an alternative to historical precedent.

A few churches were built during the 1960s, of which Maguire & Murray's Church of the Ascension in Hulme 1968-70, and Desmond Williams & Associates' RomanGlossary Term Catholic St Augustine's in Chorlton-on-Medlock (1967-8) reflect the new liturgy of that decade.

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Manchester, First Church of, Christ Scientist, Fallowfield
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Manchester, St Augustine, Chorlton-on-Medlock

Glossary

Gothic

The style of the Middle Ages from the later 12th century to the Renaissance, with which it co-existed in certain forms into the 17th century. Characterized in its full development by the pointed arch, the rib-vault and an often skeletal masonry structure for churches, combined with large glazed windows. The term was originally associated with the concept of the barbarian Goths as assailants of classical civilization.

Roman

The architecture of the Roman Empire, to which most of Britain belonged from 43 to c. 410 A.D. Our knowledge of Romano-British architecture depends mostly on archaeological reconstructions from foundations and fragments, though some notable fortifications and other military works survive above ground level in recognizable form.

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