Rectory to the Church of St Michael and All Angels, 50 Orton Road, Lawton Moor, Northenden

At a meeting of the Diocesan Committee on 10 April 1935 the building of a permanent church and a rectory, at a cost not to exceed £10,000 to serve the Lawton Moor district of Wythenshawe was approved and the committee approached N. F. Cachemaille Day, whose previous Church of St. Nicholas, Burnage was well-known locally. Work on the rectory was begun first and its design was already finalised by June 1935 when it appears on a plan of that date. Construction began in October 1935 and it was practically complete by May 1936, being noted as “existing rectory” on a drawing of the church of that date. The Rev H Nightingale took residence at the end of June. It is probable that it was largely designed separately from the church.

Two storeys in height, and of unconventional design, the rectory is of brick construction with a reinforced concrete first floor and a flat roof. The entrance front, facing Orton Road, is of three bays with small square windows, those on the ground floor being placed at the corners. The central recessed doorway, with its partly glazed curved jambs and its glazed cross in the door, is similar to that proposed at the west end in the earliest design for the church and possibly derives from the same source, in the work of Erich Mendelsohn. Although the rectory is stylistically different and completed before the church design was finalised, their relationship had been established from the outset. The rectory and church are linked physically by a block containing the choir and clergy vestries and other service rooms, and visually, by the church's lower string course being continued around the rectory at ground floor window head level.

ST MICHAEL'S RECTORY - St. Michael's Rectory was recently completed, and the Rev. H. Nightingale has lived there for only three weeks.  Built by Mr. Cachemaille-Day, the architect of St. Nicholas's Church, Burnage, the new rectory is of unconventional design. The roof is flat, and opening on to one portion of it lower than the rest are french windows from one of the upper rooms. With its spiral staircase, soft concealed lighting, chromium metal, and its mural decorations in restful and refreshing colours this is in all ways probably one of the most modern houses in Wythenshawe. On Tuesday evening at a special service this new rectory will receive the blessing of the Archdeacon of Manchester. [Manchester Guardian 18 July 1935 page 15]