Ukrainian Catholic Church of SS Peter and Paul and All Saints, and associated boundary wall and gatepiers, Coldhurst, Oldham

Summary

A former Anglican church dated 1889, converted as a Ukrainian Catholic church in 1987, by Winder and Taylor of red Ruabon brick with buff sandstone dressings, in Perpendicular Gothic style.

Description

A former Anglican church dated 1889, converted as a Ukrainian Catholic church in 1987, by Winder and Taylor.

MATERIALS: Ruabon red brick, buff Yorkshire stone dressings, slate roof.

PLAN: standing to the west of Chadderton Road, with the east end facing south-west. Chancel, north chapel and south vestry, north and south aisles, north-west tower.

EXTERIOR: Perpendicular Gothic style with stone sill-and-plinth bands and kneelers. The chancel is buttressed and gabled with decorative pressed brick tiles in the upper portion, and a three-light pointed window with hoodmoulds. The north chapel has a hipped roof with decorative brick gable and three-light window; the south vestry and organ loft is monopitched and plainer with a tall chimney. The chancel returns above have moulded-brick cornices.

The nave is of six bays, with three-light pointed clerestory windows to each bay. At the west end of the south wall there is a buttress with a half-bay beyond, with colonette supporting the west-end kneeler. The aisles have buttresses dividing the bays, and two-light pointed windows with hoodmoulds, below a moulded-brick cornice. The west end of the south aisle has a flat-roofed porch with pierced stone parapet and blocked doorway.

The north-west tower is of three stages, with buttresses, a polygonal north-east stair turret, louvred belfry with colonettes, and stone parapet with corner pinnacles. The west side has the main entrance with columns and moulded-brick surround, adzed doors, multi-paned leaded overlight and stone hoodmould, under a stone-and-brick gable. The hoodmould and gable have decorative carved stops.

The west end has a pressed-brick gable and three-light window with pressed-brick aprons below, the centre one with a shield dated 1889. Below this is a pedimented stone memorial dated 1988 commemorating the first millennium of Christianity in Ukraine, with text in a mixture of English and Ukrainian Cyrillic lettering.

INTERIOR: the chancel has a decorative tiled floor. The east window (designer unknown) has stained glass depicting seven scenes of Christ’s Passion, above panels of local arms on a background of oak leaves, including those of Oldham (surmounted by an owl). The elaborately-carved reredos has later war memorial gilded inscriptions. The roof is vaulted and painted. The elaborate baldacchino is by Ferdinando Stuflesser of Ortisei (Italy).

The nave has brick arcades on painted stone columns, and hammerbeam roof. The oak choir stalls have replaced the eastern nave pews; one bears three brass plates recording their gift by Thomas Taylor of Chadderton Cottage, Oldham, in memory of his wife Mary and of their youngest son John William, who died on his homeward voyage from Australia in 1886 and was buried at sea near St Helena. The north-east chapel has an 1891 three-light window signed by JB Capronnier of Brussels, given in memory of John and Emma Jackson, with scenes from the gospel of St Matthew. The circulation areas have parquet floors. The main west window depicts the Ascension with a background skyline of Oldham. Smaller lights below it, given by the Girls’ Brigade, are dated 1953 and depict Mary and Jesus, the dove of peace, and the holy grail. All of these west windows are thought to be by TF Willford of Marple Bridge. The font has colonettes and is inscribed in gothic lettering around the rim, SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME AND FORBID THEM NOT FOR OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: a stone wall surrounds most of the church, with moulded copings and substantial gate piers, those at the main entrance monumental with decorative caps.

History

The church now used as the Ukrainian Catholic Church of SS Peter, Paul and All Saints, was built as All Saints’ Anglican church from 1888 (although dated 1889), as the third daughter church of St Mary’s parish church in Oldham. It was consecrated in 1891. At least six cotton mills stood within 250m of the church’s site, which was given by J Bowker, JP (thought to be Joseph Bowker of Bowker and Ball at Victoria Mill, Bank Top).

The east window (liturgical directions are used throughout) with scenes from the Passion was given by John Dodd, JP (thought to be of Platt Bros, textile machinery manufacturers); the organ and brass lectern which he also gave have been removed. The stained window in the north aisle was given by John Thomas Jackson, JP (textile mill owner of Wardle) in memory of his parents. The choir stalls of carved oak have replaced some of the pews and were presented by Thomas Taylor, JP (thought to be owner of Oak mills, Shaw) in memory of his wife and of his youngest son. The boundary wall was the subject of special fundraising in 1901.

The west window of the Ascension includes a skyline of Oldham in the background and is thought to date from around 1953, when the windows below it were gifted by the church’s Girls’ Brigade to celebrate its 21st anniversary. The font cover was also given by the Girls’ Brigade, in 1947.

All Saints’ Church closed in 1987 and was sold to Oldham's Ukrainian Catholic Church of SS Peter and Paul, which had from 1963 held services in a former school on Stansfield Street. In the early C20 Catholic masses for Manchester’s Polish, 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, Cheetham Hill from 1921 (National Heritage List for England – NHLE – entry 1208542). In 1947 a Ukrainian Catholic parish was created and in 1954 the community bought the Congregational Sunday school in nearby Broughton (Salford) and it was converted as the first Ukrainian Catholic church in the United Kingdom owned by the denomination.

In 1988 a plaque was added to the exterior of the west wall of SS Peter and Paul commemorating the first millennium of official Christianity in Ukraine. The conversion has involved relatively little change, except the relocation of the choir stalls and installation of a baldacchino, and iconostasis (unusually, signed), and addition of some wall paintings.

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. 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. 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, around Manchester, West Yorkshire and the East Midlands.

Further 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 been adapted for purpose including the installation of an iconostasis (a wall of icon paintings which separates the nave from the altar).

Reasons for Listing

The Ukrainian Catholic Church of SS Peter and Paul and All Saints, Northmoor, a former Anglican church dated 1889 and converted in 1987, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as a good example of a late-C19 urban Anglican church, its Gothic design utilising mass-produced moulded and pressed brick combined with carved natural sandstone dressings to good effect;

* for its bold massing incorporating a prominent landmark tower with an expressed octagonal stair turret, and complemented by stone boundary walls with shaped copings and monumental gatepiers;

* for its good-quality fixtures, including carved wooden reredos, choir stalls and a range of stained glass by notable artists JB Capronnier and TF Willford, as well as the addition of the baldacchino and external millennium commemorative tablet that manifest the change of use to Ukrainian Catholic worship.

Historic interest:
* it is a good example of a church with an evolved worship history, in this instance a transition from Anglican to Ukrainian Catholic worship, and it reflects the development of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the mid-late C20 in owning their own buildings.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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