Church of St Augustine Pendlebury
His Pendlebury is one of the English churches of all time. Its sheer brick exterior, no tower, one long roof and the majestic sursum of its interior have never been surpassed in Victorian church building, ...The tracery of the windows is Decorated in the chancel, Perpendicular in the nave, as if building had gone on for half a century. ... Now the later Middle Ages returned and were to be the pattern until period forms were no longer followed at all. [Pevsner]
Built at the expense of the Manchester banker Edward Stanley Heywood * at an estimated cost of £33,000, St Augustine's Pendlebury represents probably the finest work of one of the two major late Victorian church architects, G. F. Bodley. Bodley's reputation was already secure before his partnership with Thomas Garner began. All Bodley could remember was that the “Parsonage House at Pendlebury came before Garner” and St Augustine's was designed before Garner's influence on the partnership became apparent. The church was built of brick in French Gothic style, with plan and proportion taken from the great brick cathedrals of Albi and Toulouse. The nave and chancel provide a vast interior with an unbroken roof line while the internal buttresses pierced by narrow arches form ambulatory aisles. These internal buttresses, connected by arches at high level, appear to be a motif derived directly from Albi Cathedral. Frederick Moore Simpson, a pupil of Bodley, suggests that this was the first church in England in which this plan form was adopted. One of the best descriptions of the church remains that of Edward Warren, published in 1910.
Its walls are of brick, and stone is used for the dressed work of doors and windows, for columns, arches and the decorative bands that add to the distinctive character of the exterior. The plan is a long parallelogram, embracing nave and chancel, without any structural division between them. The aisles are mere passages pierced between the deep internal buttresses that resist the thrust of the waggon vaulted timber roof. The church is long and spacious and lofty. The succession of tall piers with their slender engaged shafts, bearing softly moulded and finely proportioned arches is most effective in the rhythmic sense of vertical emphasis which it gives. The noble sweep of the high roof with its repeated interspacing of light ribs, the perfect proportions and skilful placing of the great eastern window, the refined dexterity of the furnishings screen, font, pulpit and stalls complete the intense impressiveness of an interior splendid in simplicity and inspiring in the stately lift of its noble lines. And if the form is fine so is the ordered scheme of colouring, both constructive and applied, which is essentially characteristic of its authorship. The gently contrasted browns, greys and creamy whites of the piers and arches, the soft rich tones of blue green and gold in the panelled wainscot of the aisles, the diapered painting of the chancel walls and the arched roof, the deep browns of the iceworks and the mellow translucency of the stained glass (Burlison & Grylls) all contribute to a sum total of decorative harmony which is as impressive as it is impossible of description.... A striking feature of the chancel is the convergence inwards of the north and south walls, which accounts for the termination of the passage aisles. This was, I believe, the first modern instance in England of the use of the pierced internal buttress. Window tracery and other details are a mixture of Flowing and Perpendicular based on a style that was being developed at about the time of the Black Death in 1349. Bodley believed that this style had never progressed because of the advent of the Renaissance and aimed to continue its development
The church was intended to serve the increasing population in Pendlebury At the beginning of the nineteenth century the villages of Swinton, Pendlebury and Clifton had a combined population of only 3,500 and were part of the Parish of Eccles. By 1871, this total had risen to 15,029 and separate parishes were created in Swinton (St Peter, 1869), Pendlebury (St Augustine,.l871) and Clifton (St Anne, 1874). Building works began in September 1870 and St Augustine's was consecrated on 26 May 1874. The site chosen for the new church was on the southern outskirts of the village in what, at the time, must still have been semi-rural surroundings. Although open fields still stretched to Irlams o'th' Height as late as the 1930s, the mills and bye law housing reached the north side of the churchyard with the building of Acme Mill in 1905. A description of its location at the turn of the century noted these increasingly industrial surroundings:
"It is situated on a flat site amidst the unlovely cinderous surroundings of a Manchester suburb," continuing "Externally, studied proportion, simplicity of detail, concentration of ornament and quiet emphasis of structural lines enhance the scale and give a rare effect of individual grandeur to a building which in clumsy hands might so easily be a mere gaunt lass in a smoky suburb." A number of recent descriptions would suggest that the church originally rose 'like a jewel out of a sea of slum housing'. While there can be no doubt that the original semi rural setting of the church was eroded by the continued expansion of the village, including the evrntual building of mills close to the churchyard, the location has remained suburban rather than urban.
The church was approached from the east, through a courtyard set round by a group of buildings all of which were designed by Bodley. These originally comprised the church (1870-4), St Augustine's Vicarage (c 1869) but now demolished, and the gatehouse and school (1874 5). The gatehouse separates the precinct from the road and has an adjoining lodge while the single storey school has a slightly Flemish character. A two storey vestry was provided on the north side of the church, completely dominated by the bulk of the nave. The church was also intended to have a freestanding tower connected to the nave by a bridge with a processional arch below. Only the projecting stair turret on the south side indicates where it was to have stood. However, perspective drawings showing the church with the proposed tower were exhibited by Bodley and Gardner at the Royal Academy in 1875. External decoration was restricted to statues round the major elements of the design. Near the east window are statues of the four doctors of the church, St Gregory, St Augustine, St Ambrose and St Jerome. On the south west porch, Christ is flanked by St Giles (with a stag) and St Paulinus while the statuary on the west includes St Augustine of Canterbury.
The interior forms one vast space, 150 feet long 40 feet wide and 61 feet high with the massive interior buttresses pierced only at the bottom and linked by arches and short transverse vaults above the windows. The sanctuary is raised by eight steps behind which is the commanding reredos, painted by C.E. Kempe, with tiers of saints and angels in the style of Sienna. Bodley was one of the first architects to completely colour a church, carefully controlling all aspects of the design including that of the stained glass, with its muted tones and restricted colours. He wrote to E.S. Heywood: "We have kept them (the windows) broad in colour, each window having its leading colour...It is about the first time it has been tried in modern times, most new windows having so many colours in them. I think the less variety of colour is more artistic." The scheme of internal decoration included extensive gilding and stencilling at the east end, while the nave walls and roof w~re also stencilled with foliage designs, motifs and inscriptions. However, the gilding of the nave roof may have been included as part of a re decoration scheme by Bodley implemented about 1900.
In the churchyard, near the east end of the church, stands a memorial to the "178 Men and Boys who lost their lives in the explosion at Clifton Hall Colliery. 18 June 1885". Sixty four of the miners are buried in the churchyard.
* Edward Stanley Heywood of the bankers Heywood Brothers, was the son of Sir Benjamin Heywood of Hope Hall, Pendleton and brother of the Rev H.R. Heywood, the vicar of Swinton. The Heywood family came to dominate the religious life of the area. Sir Benjamin Heywood was originally a Unitarian but joined the Church of England in 1842, possibly as a result of the opening of St Johns Church at Irlams o' th' Height, and henceforth took an active role at St Johns Church. Edward Heywood was much involved in the Pendlebury area of the parish, helping to establish Christ Church and contributing towards the cost of the building. However the Heywood family appear to have been disappointed in the church buildings at Christ Church. Benjamin Heywood's eldest son had moved to Dove Leys in Staffordshire where he had built a church/hall/gateway complex designed by Street. St Augustines may therefore have been an attempt to emulate this development. Edward Heywood was closely involved with the design and running of the church, remaining a church warden until his death. Although the estimated cost of the church was £33,000, Heywood's total financial contribution towards St Augustine's has been assessed as £50,000. In the courtyard of St Augustine's stands a memorial to E.S. Heywood and his brother in law, Alfred Dawes, the first vicar, fashioned in the form of a preaching cross. Heywood is buried in the churchyard.
Reference The Builder 1899 II Pg 7
Reference The Builder 1874 Pg 615
Reference The Builder 1877 Pg 637
Reference Church of St Augustine Pendlebury 1874 1924 (420 Salford Local History Library)
Reference Manchester Faces & Places Vol 9 No 8 1898
Reference Edward Warren. RIBA Journal, 19 Feb 1910, Page 316
Reference New York Architectural Review March 1898
Reference Dictionary of National Biography
Reference Stewart: Stones of Manchester
