Church of St John the Evangelist Bolton Road Irlams o’ th' Height Salford

PENDLEBURY CHURCH near Manchester - TO BUILDERS - Persons desirous of CONTRACTING for all or any of the WORKS required in the ERECTION of a NEW CHURCH at Pendlebury, in the parish of Eccles, may see the Plans and Specifications at the office of Mr George E Marsden, No 12 Princess Street, Manchester from the 4^th May next to the 13^th of May: and may obtain any information required by application to Mer Welch, architect, Liverpool. Tenders to be forwarded, on or before 14^th of May to Mr G E MARSDEN. It is not pledged that the lowest tender will be accepted. [Manchester Guardian 25 April 1840 page 1- contracts]

PENDLEBURY CHURCH near MANCHESTER - TO BUILDERS. Persons desirous of CONTRACTING for the Whole or any part of the Works required in the erection of a NEW CHURCH at Pendlebury in the parish of Eccles may see the plans and specification at the office of Mr George E Marsden, 19 Princess Street, Manchester from 4 of May to 13 May next and may obtain any information required by application to Mr Welch, architect, Liverpool. [Manchester Guardian 9 May 1840 page 1]

Neo-Norman with a big west tower and side windows of the Commissioners type. The tower has a row of five round arched bell openings, and a shallow, rather Italian pyramid roof. Built in the briefly fashionable Anglo-Norman style of the early 1840s and costing £2,000, the church of St John provided 578 sittings of which 175 were free. As originally built, the church had a nave, porches, and west tower but no chancel, while the north porch served as a vestry. The money to build and endow the new church was raised entirely by local subscription. Thomas Cooke Senior of Summerville House donated 3,600 square yards of land for the church;  and a year after the building was consecrated he gave a further 1,89 square yards of land for the building of a parsonage.

St John's Church opened in February 1842 and was consecrated on 11 October 1842. The new parish, which also encompassed the village of Pendlebury, was one of the first to be taken from the mediaeval parish of Eccles. At the time of its construction churches existed only at Eccles, Farnworth, Pendleton and Swinton. However, it remained a chapel of ease within the parish of Eccles until 17 May 1864 when it was created a separate parish at the same time as Christ Church. On 6 March 1866 St John's parish boundaries were further extended to include the Claremont and Acrefield estates,  homes to members of the Heywood banking family and, following their conversion to Church of England,  leading members of St John’s.

Later alterations included a vestry, organ chamber and chancel, added in 1858-1859. W R Corson was possibly the architect responsible for this work, being then involved in the building of Christ Church at Pendlebury. In 1881 extensive alterations were paid for by Oliver Heywood in memory of his wife. The twenty-four improvements included a screen at the west end, the panelling of the tower entrance, the enclosure of the gallery stair, the building of a baptistery, ornamental stonework to the inner porch doors and round the windows, stained glass to the nave windows and coloured texts to the walls. The stained glass was destroyed by enemy action during the Second World War.