Recycling Heritage
Built in 1834 using local stone under a pitched slate roof, this church in Greater Manchester once served a bustling industrial town at a time when christian congregation was still at the forefront of English communities. The architect was Lewis Vulliamy, of the famous clock-making family, who used a simple Gothic ‘preaching box’ design with an eight bay nave and three sided gallery. Fast forward nearly two centuries, however and the architecture may have survived but the social landscape has vastly changed. Congregations across towns like this barely fill seats on what used to be fully attended services. The result is that despite its listed status and architectural merit, growing maintenance costs of more than a quarter of a million pounds has inevitably led to the Church of England putting it up for sale, along with several dozen former places of worship across the country in order to fight back against the accruement of debt as it looks to survive into the modern era.