Description

MANCHESTER

698-1/5/479 BENNETT STREET
03-OCT-74 ARDWICK
(South side)
Anglican Church of St Benedict

(Formerly listed as:
BENNETT STREET
ARDWICK
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH OF ST BENEDICT)

II*

Church incorporating clergy house and Sunday School rooms, now parish rooms. 1880, by JS Crowther. Red brick in header bond with orange brick dressings and stone tracery, slate roofs. Early English style. Tall nave with low aisle to south side, tall north-west tower and low 2-storey clergy house on north side. Tall chancel with low transepts. The buttressed west front has a 2-centred arched west doorway with 3 orders of moulding including shafts, containing 2 cusped doorways and traceried tympanum, a multifoil each side, a band of tall blank arcading with shafts, and a large rose window. The tower to the left, square, buttressed up to eaves level and with 3 stages above that, has a 2-light window at ground floor, a small lancet to each of the next 3 stages, and a belfry stage with tourelle pinnacles, louvred 2-light windows, a machicolated pierced parapet and steep pyramidal roof. The 6-bay south side has pilaster strips and large 2-centred arched 4-light windows with geometrical tracery to the nave, small lancets to the aisle; the chancel has windows like those of the nave and coupled gabled transepts below, and a very large 7-light east window with rich geometrical tracery. The clergy house on the north side, 2 low storeys and 11 bays, with coupled gables at both ends, has segmental-pointed windows to ground floor, arched windows to 1st floor, and 4 gabled dormers in the roof, with finials.
INTERIOR: stone quatrefoil piers support brick arcades and tall clerestory. Elaborate hammerbeam and arch-braced roofs to nave and chancel. Chancel raised above height of nave and approached by wide flight of 6 steps (somewhat altered in C20). Baldacchino of c1960, but original iron parclose screens. Stained glass east window of c.1885. Brick chancel wall with integral stone lectern supported by life-size sculpture of angel. This is c.1900 by W Cecil Hardisty and EF Long. Pulpit of 1907. Vestry furnishings include cupboards and wardrobes designed by Crowther. Stained glass includes aisle windows by TF Curtis, Ward and Hughes and others probably mostly by Ward and Hughes. Stained glass also in the large west rose window.
This soaring church was cleverly integrated with the brick terraces which formerly surrounded it by the 2-storey clergy house and rooms attached to its north flank.
The ensemble is the most original of JS Crowther's church designs.

Listing NGR: SJ8655896989

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• St Benedict's Church, Ardwick at Wikipedia
• Anglican Church of St Benedict at Wikipedia
• Wikidata IDs Q108806320 Q17551257

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)