Church of St Francis Gorton Manchester

On 27 December 1861 a small group of Franciscan friars obtained the permission of the Right Reverend Dr Turner, Bishop of Salford, to settle in the diocese. Here they joined the Rev Father Cardinal who was then building a school at Bankfield Cottage in Gorton, at the time still a semi-rural area. The Franciscans determined to establish a priory on the site and, in 1863, commissioned Edward Welby Pugin to prepare designs for the church.  The foundation stone of the monastery was laid on the Feast of Pentecost 1863 and on 4 October 1863 the first wing was solemnly blessed and dedicated by Bishop Turner. This was used as a temporary chapel until the completion of the church. Bishop Turner laid the corner stone of the church on 9 June 1866. However, due to a continuing shortage of funds for the purchase of building materials, progress was pitifully slow. For a period in 1871 work stopped completely and the church was not finally opened until 26 September 1872.

Pugin's design was intended to be awe-inspiring and dramatic, a symbol and show-piece of Roman Catholicism and a demonstration of the power of the Franciscan order. Rising majestically above the tight packed streets of bye-law housing, the church, of red brick with white stone dressings appeared from a distance 'as if it was made of icing sugar' (1). The style chosen was late 13th century Gothic with the main body of the church built in polychromatic brickwork, red with black details. French influences are to be seen in the absence of transepts, the use of the polygonal apse, large rose windows, repetitive wheel windows and the high steep roof.  The west front, richly decorated with a super abundance of ashlar dressings, is a deliberate piece of pure facadism. Three flying buttresses dominate the elevation, providing vertical emphasis to the composition but support nothing. The buttresses are oddly connected to the gable wall with tracery, while out of the central buttress grows a canopied crucifix above which rises a thin bell turret and fleche-like spire (2). At ground level four portals, each with a false gable lead into a narthex.

The plan form was a development of Edward Pugin's work in the 1850s where there was a deliberate attempt to bring the altar nearer to the congregation. As Muthesius observed, "towards the end of the fifties Edward Pugin found a solution which was remarkably similar to that which the Ecclesiologists were trying at the same time: nave and chancel were united into a high and unified space, to which all other parts of the church were subordinated (3). By the mid-1860s this concept had been further refined with increased interior height, a continuous roof line over nave and chancel and greatly reduced aisles. A.W.N Pugin's battle for a remote high altar and screened chancel was lost. The arrangement devised by his son was that of a basilican church in which the altar, priests and people were collected into one uninterrupted area while the aisles were reduced to mere processional ways and approaches to chapels.

Internally the nave and chancel are both exceptionally high, the east end terminating with a polygonal apse. not part of the original scheme, being constructed in 1884. At the back of the altar is the elaborate marble and alabaster reredos forming a buttress to the great central canopy rising to a height of over 40 feet. The bottom of the reredos is composed of two large piers that on the Epistle side containing the piscina and that on the Gospel side the aumbry. On top of these piers are canopied niches, in which are figures of St Anthony, St Clare, St Elizabeth of Hungary and St Bonaventure. Arches with crocketed and traceried gables connect the piers to the walls of the chancel. On either side of the central canopy, which is supported by marble columns, are flying buttresses formed of open tracery work, and at the bottom of these buttresses are piers terminating in niches. In the niche on the Gospel side is a figure of St Francis and in that on the Epistle side is a statue of St Dominic. The throne, supported by two angels, is placed immediately under the central canopy, and is approached by steps following the line of the apsidal chancel at the back of the reredos. The altar and tabernacle stand away from the reredos, and are approached by three stone steps. The altar top is of pure white marble, supported by eight Californian marble shafts, and beneath the altar are panels on which are carved subjects emblematical of the Eucharist. The tabernacle is of alabaster, richly moulded and carved, and has a door of beaten brass.