St Paul's Church, Withington is a
Grade II listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
parish church
A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...
in the suburb of
Withington
Withington is a suburb of Manchester, England. Historically part of Lancashire, it lies from Manchester city centre, south of Fallowfield, north-east of Didsbury and east of Chorlton-cum-Hardy. Withington had a population at the 2011 ce ...
,
Manchester
Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...
, in the United Kingdom. It is located on Wilmslow Road, and has an associated
Church of England primary school.
Worship at St Paul's consists of traditional
Holy Communion
The Eucharist ( ; from , ), also called Holy Communion, the Blessed Sacrament or the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite, considered a sacrament in most churches and an ordinance in others. Christians believe that the rite was instituted by J ...
(''
Book of Common Prayer
The ''Book of Common Prayer'' (BCP) is the title given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christianity, Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The Book of Common Prayer (1549), fi ...
'' and ''
Common Worship
''Common Worship'' is the name given to the series of services authorised by the General Synod of the Church of England and launched on the first Sunday of Advent in 2000. It represents the most recent stage of development of the Liturgical M ...
'') and occasional services of
Choral Evensong or
evening prayer in support of
L'Arche
L'Arche ("The Ark") is an international federation of non-profit organisations working to create networks of community where people with and without intellectual disabilities live and work together. Founded in 1964 by Jean Vanier, Raphaël Si ...
in Manchester.
History
St Paul's was built in 1841, when Withington was growing from a small
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...
village into an urban district of Manchester. Prior to the establishment of St Paul's, the nearest Anglican place of worship to Withington was at the
Church of St James, Didsbury.
St Paul's was built on land donated by
Wilbraham Egerton, 1st Earl Egerton to provide a place of worship for local people of Withington.
The church was designed by the Mancunian architectural firm Hayley & Brown, who also built a number of churches around
North-West England.
Soon after the foundation of St Paul's, a school was established next to the church in 1844, St Paul's Primary School, also on land donated by Lord Egerton.
In April 1847, during a visit to Manchester, the composer
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions inc ...
visited St Paul's to play the newly installed
pipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a Musical keyboard, keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provide ...
. According to a churchwarden's 1896 account, Mendelssohn "played a service and gave a recital upon the organ and it was pronounced by him to be an excellent instrument". Mendelssohn's Manchester tour also included an organ recital at
St Luke's Church,
Cheetham. The composer had family and social connections with Withington; the first wedding to take place at St Paul's was that of a cousin of Mendelssohn's wife Cécile, and another cousin was married here in 1864.
Architecture
The church is built of red brick with stone coping. Its most prominent feature is a high clock tower with square
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 (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act ...
es and four
pinnacle
A pinnacle is an architectural element originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. It was main ...
s. The exterior has some
Neo-Norman features, notably tall, rounded-headed lancet windows and a neo-Norman west door whose arch is carved with
dog-tooth ornamentation.
The building was extended in 1863 by J. Lowe, adding a
chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...
, a southern chancel aisle and
organ chamber above, supported by
Romanesque arches with
foliated capital
Capital and its variations may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital
** List of national capitals
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter
Econom ...
s. In 1921 the chancel aisle was converted into a
war memorial chapel and a small
apse
In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...
was built onto the east end of the chapel. The interior was renovated in the 1970s, but retains some original
Victorian fittings.
The
stained glass
Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...
includes three lights at the east end by
Ward and Hughes
Ward and Hughes (formerly Ward and Nixon) was the name of an English company producing stained-glass windows.
History
Ward and Hughes was preceded by the company Ward and Nixon, whose studio was at 67 Frith Street, Soho. They created a large w ...
, and in the nave are two 1901 windows by local glassmaker Walter J. Pearce: a depiction of a young
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...
and a stained-glass copy of
Holman Hunt's
''Light of the World'' painting.
In the chapel are four small windows commemorating the fallen of
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, including a window dedicated to 15 former members of the Sunday school who were killed in action.
There are several wall memorials in the church. The oldest memorial is dedicated to Robert Tebbut, a benefactor of St Paul's who died in 1842, the year after the foundation of the church; the inscription reads, "to whose efforts the erection of this church is mainly due, and who is, alas! the first tenant of its vaults."
The
churchyard
In Christian countries, a churchyard is a patch of land adjoining or surrounding a church (building), church, which is usually owned by the relevant church or local parish itself. In the Scots language and in both Scottish English and Ulster S ...
has many Victorian
headstones
A gravestone or tombstone is a marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. A marker set at the head of the grave may be called a headstone. An especially old or elaborate stone slab may be called a funeral stele, stela, or slab. The us ...
. A solid oak
lych gate was installed in 1894 at the entrance to the churchyard, donated by local philanthropist Clayton Chorlton. In 2007 the gates were stolen during a Sunday morning service.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Withington, St Paul
Grade II listed churches in Manchester
St Paul
Anglican Diocese of Manchester
Church of England church buildings in Greater Manchester
Churches completed in 1841
19th-century Church of England church buildings
Churches in Manchester
Neoclassical church buildings in England