Unitarian Chapel, Manchester Old Road, Middleton

The exterior was a late Victorian Gothic design, built in harsh, red, engineering type bricks with yellow sandstone dressings. A school room occupied the ground floor and the chapel was above at first  floor level. Two unusual features of a technical nature came to light with the demolition of the building. The nave was spanned by steel beams forming an arched truss tied by a steel collar beam. Steel was not commonly used for ordinary building purposes for another decade and the structural system described was in any case unorthodox. Secondly, it was discovered that the heating apparatus consisted of an extensive system of ducts through which warm air circulated from the boiler. A large fan extracted air from the church and warm air was drawn in by vacuum. Although the exterior design was conventional in the use of materials and raw and immature in many details, the church interior design revealed the architectural orientation of Wood's mind. The general form of the interior with a high, arched roof over the nave, spanned by collar beams and lined with pine boarding, most probably derived from R. N. Shaw's noteworthy Holy Trinity Church, Latimer Road, London (1887 9). but the detail and decoration of the church were highly original and clearly inspired by William Morris and the ideals of the Arts and Crafts Movement. On the end wall of the chancel Wood and his artist friend, Fred W. Jackson, painted a large mural depicting seed time and harvest. The mural was divided by a central arch over a bay accommodating the organ. The left hand side showed ploughing and the right hand reaping. The figures wore contemporary dress and the choice of subject and treatment were typically pre Raphaelite and not dissimilar to Ford Madox Brown's painting work. The mural was short lived because Wood repeated the error made by Morris and his friends when they similarly decorated the walls of the newly finished Oxford Union Debating Hall about 1857. The walls were still damp and chemically active and the efflorescence from the drying out process had a ruinous effect. On later projects Wood prepared murals separately on fabric which was fixed in position after the drying out was complete.

The pulpit, font and organ screen were all remarkable, the pulpit in particular, because plain surfaces of oak were contrasted with small decorative panels of carving. In the gable wall of the chancel there was a fine stained glass window showing an apple tree laden with fruit and with birds in flight. All of this decorative detail was of a very advanced character and appears to portend Art Nouveau. When new the interior of the church must have appeared rich, colourful, stimulating, and vastly different from the typical High Victorian church interiors of the preceding decades." [ JHG Archer]

UNITARIAN CHAPEL. MIDDLETON, LANCS. On the 17th inst the new Unitarian Chapel was opened. It has been erected from the designs of Mr Edgar Wood, occupies the site of the old structures in Manchester old-road and consists of two storeys and a basement. The second story is to be used for chapel purposes and the ground floor as a Sunday school and lecture hall. The cost of the erection is about £1800. [Builder. 24 June 1893 Page 495]

MR EDGAR WOOD, architect, has prepared plans for the erection of a new school and chapel for the Unitarian body of this borough. The erection will be on the site of the present chapel in Manchester Old-road, Middleton, and judging from the plans it will be a very handsome building, having a splendid elevation up to the main road. It will be two storeys high. On the ground floor will be the school- room, 51 feet by 34 feet, with a raised platform and a spacious classroom. The upper room will form the chapel. and is exactly of the same dimensions as the schoolroom and will have a vestry and raised platform. The entrance to the building will be from Lime-street. The estimated cost is £1,500. [Middleton Guardian - Saturday 26 December 1891 page 5]

MIDDLETON UNITARIANS. LAYING OF MEMORIAL STONES OF A NEW CHAPEL - On Saturday, the Mayor of Middleton (Aldermen T B Wood) and Mr John Hilton of Rhodes, laid two memorial stones of a Unitarian Chapel and Sunday School. which are being erected in Manchester Old Road, Middleton. Since 1860 the Unitarians of Middleton have worshipped in a one storey building which was erected as a temperance hall, but this becoming too small to meet the demands of an increasing congregation, it has been entirely pulled down and the new premises are being erected on the same site. The building will be two storeys high. The estimated cost is £1,500 and half of this amount has already been raised. [Middleton Albion - Saturday 8 October 1892 page 5]

UNITARIANISM IN MIDDLETON - The building is two storey building, to be built of Ruabon brick, with terra-cotta mouldings and tracery work. It will contain a school-room 83ft by 37ft, two class rooms, a large and commodious cellar which will serve the purpose of kitchen and will contain the heating apparatus, a minister's vestry, an organ and choir clamber, and a chapel that is calculated to seat 350 people. The estimated cost, including an organ, of which the congregation is very much in need, having only a worn-out harmonium, is £2000. Of this amount the congregation have undertaken to raise one-half. They are not a large congregation, and consist mostly of working people, and even £1,000, which they will have raised in five years, is a very large sum to them. They trust, therefore, that generous friends throughout the country will come to their assistance. The architect of the new chapel is Edgar Wood, Esq, A.R.I.B.A, son of Alderman T B Wood, JP.  - The Christian Life and Unitarian Herald. [Middleton Albion - Saturday 15 October 1892 page 5]

Reference    Building News 23 June 1893. Page 856
Reference    Builder. 24 June 1893 Page 495 - opening