St. Augustine's Church is an active Anglican church in Pendlebury,

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tam ...

, England. Dedicated to

St Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...

, it is part of the benefice of Swinton and Pendlebury along with St Peter's Church in Swinton and All Saints' Church in Wardley. The church is in the Eccles deanery, the

archdeaconry An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denominations, above that of mo ...

of Salford and the diocese of Manchester. The church was granted Grade II* listed status in 1966 but has since been upgraded to Grade I. Called the ''"Miners' Cathedral"'', due to its almost cathedralesque stature, in the heart of a one time

coal-mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

community, it was also sometimes locally called ''"Gussie's"''. The church is situated on Bolton Road and has a connected primary school.

History

Manchester banker, Edward Stanley Heywood of

Heywood's Bank Heywood's Bank was a private banking firm established and run in Manchester by members of the Heywood family of Pendleton between 1788 and 1874. Family and banking history The bank was founded in Manchester by Benjamin Heywood and his two sons, ...

commissioned G. F. Bodley to design the church in March 1870. Its foundation stone was laid in the following September and it was consecrated in May 1874. Heywood paid for its construction, decoration and furnishings. The church was constructed to the design of Bodley and

Thomas Garner Thomas Garner (1839–1906) was one of the leading English Gothic revival architects of the Victorian era. He is known for his almost 30-year partnership with architect George Frederick Bodley. Early life Born at Wasperton Hill Farm in Warw ...

between 1871 and 1874. The cost, £3,300 (£ in ) was largely borne by Heywood. Bodley designed a bell tower for the south-east side, higher than the main roof, but it was not built.

Architecture

Exterior

The church is built of red brick and has clay tile roof and stone dressings. It was inspired by the Gothic cathedrals in

Albi Albi (; oc, Albi ) is a commune in southern France. It is the prefecture of the Tarn department, on the river Tarn, 85 km northeast of Toulouse. Its inhabitants are called ''Albigensians'' (french: Albigeois, Albigeoise(s), oc, albig ...

and

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Pa ...

in France. Its

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

occupy ten bays under a continuous roof. The church has a door at the west end, a porch on the south side and

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

on the north. The bays are separated by shallow weathered

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...

es that terminate in triangular gablets above the coped

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). ...

which has pierced quatrefoils above the chancel. The nave and chancel are differentiated by their windows. The nave has three-light windows below blank arches while the chancel has four-light windows with reticulated

tracery Tracery is an architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support the ...

. The east window between angled buttresses topped by

crocket A crocket (or croquet) is a small, independent decorative element common in Gothic architecture. The name derives from the diminutive of the French ''croc'', meaning "hook", due to the resemblance of crockets to a bishop's crosier. Description ...

ted pinnacles has seven lights decorated with flowing reticulated tracery. The west window has five lights. Clifton Hall Colliery disaster memorial

Interior

The church has large internal buttresses that are pierced by passage

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, par ...

s and which support high-level arches. The

barrel roof A barrel roof is a curved roof that, especially from below, is curved like a cut-away barrel. They have some advantages over dome roofs, especially being able to cover rectangular buildings, due to their uniform cross-section. Barrel vault ...

is richly painted above chancel. An elaborately carved rood screen separates the nave from the chancel and the

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a sa ...

is raised. The reredos is decorated with painted figures. The organ case, rood screen and

sedilia In church architecture, sedilia (plural of Latin ''sedīle'', "seat") are seats, usually made of stone, found on the liturgical south side of an altar, often in the chancel, for use during Mass for the officiating priest and his assistants, the ...

were designed by Bodley. The ornate font on a carved stone is raised from the ground by several steps, and above it is a carved wooden hood suspended from the walls.

Clergy

The first vicar, Doctor Alfred Dewes (b.

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...

1825; d. Pendlebury 1911), was vicar from the consecration of the church in 1874 until his death in 1911. He worked unceasingly throughout the

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

and cholera outbreaks, helping the poor and afflicted. Both vicar and church were the focal point for the mourning following the Clifton Hall Colliery explosion on 18 June 1885, in which 178 men and boys were killed.

Churchyard

Below the east window is a memorial to 64 victims of the Clifton Hall Colliery disaster who were buried in the churchyard. The churchyard also contains

war graves War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regu ...

of twelve service personnel of the

Great War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and four of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

.
CWGC Cemetery Report. Breakdown obtained from casualty record.

Reception

Nicholas Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

writing in the

Buildings of England The Pevsner Architectural Guides are a series of guide books to the architecture of Great Britain and Ireland. Begun in the 1940s by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the 46 volumes of the original Buildings of England series were publish ...

described the church as one of the greatest and most moving of all Victorian churches, with an interior of "breathtaking majesty and purity". The church was the subject of drawings and paintings by artist

L.S. Lowry Laurence Stephen Lowry ( ; 1 November 1887 – 23 February 1976) was an English artist. His drawings and paintings mainly depict Pendlebury, Lancashire (where he lived and worked for more than 40 years) as well as Salford and its vicinity ...

who lived at 117 Station Road, Pendlebury, between 1909 and 1948.

Current condition

In recent years, several church restoration projects have been completed, including re-pointing southeast side and the addition of toilets and kitchen. The church is in need of at least £1 million for refurbishments to the interior roof and to repair the pointing on the exterior of the church, and is a priority project for

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

, who quote it as being "exceptionally important"."The Diocese of Manchester: Handling problems in partnership"

, retrieved 4 July 2006.

External links

Image of the church

St. Augustine's C of E Primary School Website

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Augustines Church, Pendlebury Churches in the City of Salford Pendlebury Grade I listed churches in Greater Manchester Churches completed in 1874 19th-century Church of England church buildings Pendlebury George Frederick Bodley church buildings