Christ Church, Walmersley Road and School Lane, Walmersley, Bury

CHURCH CONSECRATION AT WALMERSLEY-CUM-SHUTTLEWORTH – The Bishop of Manchester yesterday consecrated a new church at Walmersley-cum-Shuttleworth, near Bury. A church was erected on the same site 45 years ago, but it had become so ill-fitted to meet the requirements of the congregation that it was decided some time since to pull it down and erect an entirely new edifice in its place. This has now been done at a cost of upwards of £6,000. The new building, which like the old one is known as Christ Church, contains nearly 700 sittings. It is cruciform in plan, with nave, aisles, north and south transepts, chancel, organ chamber, vestries and tower. The extreme length inside is 123 feet. The breadth between the aisle walls is 41 feet and between the walls of the transepts 76 feet. .. The materials used in the construction are random stone faced with hacked millstone and ashlar. The stone is pure freestone of a hard nature and beautiful colour and has the advantage of maintaining its colour much longer than the more porous sandstones generally in use. The design adopted is the early English. The side windows to the aisles and clerestory are plain lancets, with Hollington stone over-arches. The windows to the west gable transepts and organ chamber and chancel have the upper parts filled with geometrical tracery of late thirteenth century period. The buttresses are plain and massive, and generally it may be said, the stability of the structure has been far more considered than mere ornament. The roofing is open timbered of pitch pine, unvarnished, and there being no chance arch, the whole of the nave and chancel framed rafters are visible in uninterrupted succession. The seating in the body of the church is also of pitch pine, varnished, but the choir stalls are of dull oak. The tower foundations are put in and the superstructure has been carried up to the height of the aisle walls, but want of funds has checked its growth at this stage.  The general contract has been undertaken by Messrs Thompson and Brierley of Bury, who have worked from the designs of Messrs Maxwell and Tuke of Manchester and Bury. [Manchester Guardian 20 September 1883, page 7]

Stained glass to south transept – Ward and Hughes of London
Stained glass to north transept – Heaton, Butler and Bayne
Thee windows in the south wall of the chancel – Lavers Barrand and Westlake
East window – from the 1838 church.

Consecrated      19 September 1883

Reference           Manchester Guardian 20 September 1883, page 7