Description

MANCHESTER

SJ8490 WILMSLOW ROAD, Didsbury
698-1/25/670 (East side)
11/11/87 Didsbury Methodist Church of St Paul

GV II

Methodist church. 1875, by E.T.Barry and Sons. Coursed squared
sandstone rubble, steeply pitched roof of graduated green
slates. Nave with transepts, chancel with north vestry and
south organ house, south-west steeple. Gothic style. The
3-stage tower has diagonal buttresses, a 2-centred arched west
doorway with 2 orders of moulding including foliated bands and
shafts with foliated caps, coupled lancets to the 2nd stage,
coupled belfry lancets with shafts and hoodmoulds with figured
stops, a foliated cornice with pseudo-gargoyles at the
corners, square corner pinnacles with shafts, and a broach
spire with lucarnes. The 3-bay nave has stepped triple lancets
rising into gablets, and a traceried 5-light west window; the
buttressed aisles have arcaded 5-light windows, and the north
aisle has a gabled porch at the west end, with 2-centred
arched doorway and steeply-pitched roof. The transepts have
angle-buttresses and corner pinnacles like those of the tower,
3-light windows in the gables and coupled lancets in the
sides; and the chancel has a traceried 3-light east window
with figured stops to the hoodmould. Most windows have
geometrical coloured glazing. Interior: aisle arcades of
polished granite columns with carved capitals and 2-centred
arches; barrel roof to nave, on corbelled columns; wide
crossing with stout corbelled shafts to the arches; wide
chancel arch, and 3-bay chancel arcades (blank arches on north
side, organ on south side) with heavily-carved 2-centred
arches; encaustic tiled floors; painted panelled barrel roof
to chancel; stone pulpit on granite shafts; marble reredos;
carving throughout includes foliage, fruit, animals and birds;
several wall monuments to "tutors of this college" (etc).
History: associated with former Wesleyan Theological College
to south (now Manchester Polytechnic School of Education,
q.v.).

Listing NGR: SJ8478590704

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• St Paul's Methodist Church, Didsbury at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q26546574

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

• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair