Roman Catholic Church of St Chad and attached Presbytery, and Boundary Walls, Cheetham, Manchester

Summary

A Roman Catholic church with attached presbytery, now an oratory, of 1847, by Weightman and Hadfield of buff sandstone in Perpendicular Gothic style.

Description

A Roman Catholic church with attached presbytery, now an oratory, of 1847, by Weightman and Hadfield.

MATERIALS: coursed rubble Todmorden summit sandstone, slate roofs.

PLAN: nave with south-west tower, north and south aisles, chancel with north and south chapels. Presbytery attached at south-east corner, of reverse-L plan, with south and east ranges, and courtyard in the angle formed by corridors, with a north sacristy connecting to the church.

Church:
EXTERIOR: in the Perpendicular Gothic style, with a low weathered plinth all around. The chancel has a large five-light traceried east window with stopped hoodmould, and angle buttresses. The south wall is abutted by the presbytery, the north wall by the Lady chapel. The Lady chapel is gabled and has a three-light traceried east window with four-centred arch head, hoodmould and stops. Its north wall has two, two-light windows under stopped hoodmoulds, and a north-west buttress.

The north aisle is of six bays with buttresses, five with large gargoyles said to represent deadly sins; the north-west corner has a crocketed pinnacle. The windows are pointed-arched, of three-lights and with hoodmoulds stopped with (unidentified) likenesses; all the tracery is subtly different. Bay (from left) five has a doorway with ogee-head with crockets, also stopped with likenesses, and a statue niche above. The south aisle has three similar bays with more figurative hoodmould stops and two gargoyled buttresses. To the right is St Philip’s chapel, which is gabled with two, two-light windows. Its west return has a three-light, low-pointed arched window with hoodmould and angel stops. At the left of the aisle, in the angle with the tower, is the gabled south porch, with buttresses and a small pinnacle at the left, and a modern access ramp. The nave has (mostly paired) two-light north and south clerestory windows.

The tower is very substantial, of three stages with narrow south-west vice, and string-courses, angle-buttresses, massive moulded and weathered plinth, embattled parapet with small crocketed spire over the vice, crocketed intermediate and corner pinnacles and two louvred and traceried belfry windows per side, separated by shafting. The vice is square to the lower stage, rising to octagonal, with a corner niche with a statue of St Chad. The west face of the tower has a small three-light west window with hollow-moulded surround, tracery and likeness-stopped hoodmould. The second stage has a niche with crocketed hood.

The west wall has a very large traceried five-light west window and a moulded doorway below this, both with likeness hoodmould stops. To the left, the north aisle has a similar, three-light, traceried window.

INTERIOR: the chancel is arcaded with a marble and terrazzo floor, with an east window of 1847 by Barnett of York, depicting scenes from the life of St Chad (in 2023, still not in their original narrative order after an earlier cleaning). The window is partially obscured by the elaborately-carved and painted reredos which has been raised; the high altar (containing relics of St Chad) is similar, retaining its more modest original tabernacle and exposition throne, behind more elaborate additions of the 1870s. The piscina and sedilia also survive. 1856 murals of the life of St Chad, figures of SS George, Andrew, Patrick and David, and angels, are partially visible through later overpainting.

To the north is the Lady chapel, with east window depicting Mary Auxiliam Christianorum and with images representing other titles of the virgin, including seat of wisdom and house of gold. The north windows have some bomb-damaged areas. The east wall is painted with lilies and roses and the Greek abbreviation MP/OY (Meter Theou). The reredos and altar have sculptural carvings.

To the south of the chancel is St Philip’s chapel, which has elaborately-carved communion rails and similar screen. There is a tall, coved wooden reredos, and carved stone altar. The windows are by William Wailes.

The nave has six-bay arcades of pointed double-chamfered arches on octagonal piers with embattled capitals, a hammerbeam roof and terrazzo aisle floors, with a mosaic at the foot of the sanctuary. There is a very richly-carved pulpit with canopy and crocketed pinnacles; similar canopies surmount statues on either side of the chancel arch. The north aisle has a window of St Catherine. The large nave west window of 2020 by Deborah Lowe depicts the Transfiguration and overlooks an extended choir gallery, with 1960s confessionals and narthex below. The south aisle has a modern war memorial at the east end incorporating an older carving. Further west there is also a memorial to Sgt James Nicholson, killed in action in 1915, in the form of a Pieta statue. This is flanked by wooden pillars on which are listed the names of the fallen of the parish of Miles Platting.

The belfry has a single 18cwt bell by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. It is inscribed:
LAUDO DEUM VERUM. PLEBEM VOCO/ CONGREGO CLERUM. DEFUNCTOS PLORO/ PESTEM FUGO. FESTA DECORO
(translation: I praise the true God. I summon the people. I gather the clergy. I weep for the dead. I banish the plague. I embellish the feasts).

The south porch is lined with decorative tiles, and contains a holy water stoup.

Presbytery:
EXTERIOR: this is also in the Gothic style, and of two storeys plus attic and basement. The main front faces east onto Stocks Street; due to level changes the basement is exposed here. It is of three wide bays, gabled at the right. The left bay has a gabled half dormer, three-light first-floor window and five-light ground-floor window, with blind window to the left. There is a first-floor chimney breast with a shield in a decorative surround. The entrance bay has two gabled dormers, two two-light windows, a polygonal ground-floor bay window, small statue niche, and pointed doorway with hoodmould, reached by steps along the front. The right-hand bay has two-and three-light windows, and a square ground-floor bay window. There is a tall gable stack at the right.

The south wall has a later square pent-roofed bay window at the right, and tall eaves chimney stack at the left, with a central ridge stack.

The west wall has a gabled bay at the right with a three-light window to each of its two storeys. To the left is a low entrance corridor with pointed doorway; above can be seen a dormer, and the hipped-roof stair tower of the east range. The north wall is blind with projecting gable chimney breast and stack.

INTERIOR: this retains doors and windows with leaded and stained glass, and parquet floors to corridors and the north sacristy. The centrepiece is the dining room in the ground floor of the east range, with Jacobean strapwork plaster ceiling, corbelled heraldic fireplace, and heraldic stained glass to the three large windows.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the boundary walls to the north and west sides of the churchyard, with a return on the east side to the presbytery, are of coursed sandstone rubble with ashlar coping. There are two gateways in the west side and one in the north side, with wooden gates in arch-braced form. The east return retains some original railings.

History

The Roman Catholic church of St Mary and St Chad, now the Manchester Oratory, was begun in 1846. It is the successor to an earlier St Chad’s on Rook Street, built in the 1770s when Catholics still could not own property or inherit land, and practising the religion was still officially outlawed. The Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1791 allowed freedom to practise and to build churches (with some conditions), leading to the construction of churches including St Mary’s on Mulberry Street (1794) and St Augustine’s on Granby Row (1820). The new St Chad’s was, however, the first new Catholic church to open in Manchester since the 1829 Act of Emancipation, and its opening ceremony in 1847 was the first performance in Manchester of Catholic ritual on a grand scale in 300 years. The new church formed part of a significant national building of Catholic churches following the 1829 Act, but predated the peak of the boom after the re-establishment of Catholic territorial bishops in 1850, and the great wave of Irish immigration resulting from the famine of 1846 to 1849.

St Chad’s architecture is a relatively accurate Gothic Revival style, and a conscious bridge to the past as advocated by AWN Pugin. This illustrates the development of ecclesiastical architecture generally during this period, in particular when considered alongside the same architects’ St Mary’s (the ‘hidden gem’) in Romanesque style which opened in 1848 (National Heritage List for England – NHLE – entry 1197894). A published version of the design for that church attracted public criticism from Pugin.

From 1921 St Chad's hosted Manchester’s Ukrainian Catholic congregation, in the church itself until 1933 and then until 1940 in the church school’s chapel, returning to the church after the school was bomb-damaged. In 1947 the Ukrainian Catholic parish was created and in 1954 the community bought the Congregational sunday school in nearby Broughton and it was converted as a Ukrainian Catholic church, removing the need for Ukrainian services at St Chad’s.

The first notable migration from Ukraine to England was in the late C19 and early C20 when several hundred people from western Ukraine settled in Manchester, centred on Cheetham Hill. Although most of them had either returned to Ukraine or relocated to the USA or Canada by the outbreak of the First World War, a small community remained in the city. In the early C20 Catholic masses for Polish and Lithuanian and Ukrainian congregations were held in a chapel named St Casimir’s that was first established in a house, and then in a former Methodist chapel on Oldham Road in Collyhurst. The Ukrainian congregation then found a home at St Chad’s.

After the Second World War around 35,000 more Ukrainians came to the United Kingdom, including many former soldiers and other displaced persons. Many were recruited into the European Volunteer Workers Scheme, which addressed labour shortages by offering paid employment in industry and agriculture. Most of these post-war migrants remained here, and they and later generations of their families formed Ukrainian communities in towns and cities across England, with concentrations in London, Manchester, West Yorkshire and the East Midlands. More immigration occurred after the loosening of restrictions in (and later, the collapse of) the Soviet Union. By around 2005 there were estimated to be 100,000 Ukrainians in the United Kingdom. The ongoing conflict with Russia, which escalated in 2022, has brought (to date) around a further 160,000 refugees here.

As Ukrainian communities have developed, they have often shared or adapted existing buildings to create spaces for worship, education, cultural celebrations and community activities. The two major Christian traditions - the Ukrainian Catholic Church and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church - are represented by a number of buildings across the country. These have often been adapted for purpose including the installation of an iconostasis (a wall of icon paintings which separates the nave from the altar).

The church was restored by Frank Reynolds between 1949 and 1951 and reordered by Greenhalgh & Williams in 1965. The 1960s work, reflecting changes in the Catholic liturgy to make it more inclusive, involved removing the rood screen, overpainting murals in the sanctuary and above the arcades, creating a narthex and adding new confessionals. Various works of restoration and repair have taken place in the late C20 and early C21.

Since 2012 the church has been the Manchester home of the Congregation of the Oratory of St Philip Neri. Further repairs since then have included rebuilding the spire and adding lavatories (2016), the new west window (replacing the post-Second World War replacement), disabled access at the north porch and extension of the choir gallery over the narthex (2020). The church continues to serve a very diverse congregation.

Reasons for Listing

The Roman Catholic Church of St Chad and attached presbytery, and boundary walls, a Catholic church with attached presbytery, now an oratory, of 1847, by Weightman and Hadfield, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* imposing building in Gothic style by the notable practice of Weightman and Hadfield, with a striking south-west tower with expressed polygonal stair turret, and good decorative carving including statuary, gargoyles and figurative hoodmould stops;

* the church retains a number of notable interior features, including canopied pulpit, chapel fixtures, bell and stained-glass windows;

* the ensemble is enhanced by the inclusion of a large presbytery in complementary Gothic style with good surviving interior features, and boundary walls with timber gates and some surviving railings.

Historic interest:
* it is the first post-emancipation Catholic church in Manchester, embodying the growing strength and confidence of the denomination after the repeal of more than 300 years of discrimination;

* it has a rich history of serving various communities and congregations.

External Links

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