St Paul's Methodist Church, Didsbury

St Paul's Didsbury
The spire of St Paul's Didsbury
St Paul's Didsbury Location of St Paul's in Greater Manchester
53.4130059°N 2.230219°W / 53.4130059; -2.230219
Location	781 Wilmslow Road, Manchester M20 2RW
Country	United Kingdom
Denomination	Former Methodist Church
History
Former name(s)	St Paul's Methodist Church, Didsbury
Status	Former church
Founded	1877
Dedication	St. Paul the Apostle
Events	1990: converted to office space
Architecture
Functional status	Office conversion
Heritage designation	Grade II
Designated	3 October 1974
Architect(s)	H.H. Vale
Style	Gothic Revival
Groundbreaking	1875
Completed	1877
Construction cost	£20,000
Closed	1987
Specifications
Materials	Sandstone
Administration
District	Manchester and Stockport District

St Paul's Methodist Church is a former Methodist church in the Manchester suburb of Didsbury. The building was designed by the architect H.H. Vale as a church for the nearby Wesleyan Theological Institution and opened in 1877. The building was converted into an office space in 1990. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building.

History

St Paul's Church was built as a memorial to the local philanthropist and MP, James Heald of Parrs Wood. It was designed by the Liverpudlian architect H.H. Vale, who at the time was also collaborating with Cornelius Sherlock on the design of the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. During the project, Vale committed suicide, and the church was completed by T D Barry & Sons. Construction lasted from 1875 to 1877.

Architecture

The original interior of St Pauls Church

Built in the Victorian Gothic style, Vale's church displays freely interpreted elements of Early English and Geometrical Decorated Gothic architecture. The layout is cruciform with a belfry and steeple on the south-west corner. The stonework is sandstone and architectural elements typical of the style are used throughout, such as lancet windows and foliar decoration, with dormer windows along the nave.

The interior is noted for its arcades of polished Aberdeen granite and Irish marble columns with carved capitals, encaustic tiled floors, a painted panelled barrel roof, richly carved stonework which features fruit and foliage inhabited with animals and birds, a stone pulpit resting on granite shafts, a baptismal font of Caen stone and a marble reredos. The interior walls are of Hollington stone. The church also includes several wall monuments to "tutors of this college".

The office conversion, which was carried out by the firm Downs & Variava in 1990, has been criticised favourably; the insertion of mezzanine floors is regarded as sympathetic to the spacious interior by the retention of the area under the crossing to roof height.

Modern use

The building is occupied today by a pipeline simulation & leak detection company, Atmos International.

Present-day church

Although the Victorian church building has now been put to secular use, Christian worship continues on the site at the neighbouring Didsbury Methodist Church, a small brick building dating from 1961.

See also

• Grade II listed buildings in Manchester

Bibliography

• Hartwell, Clare; Hyde, Matthew; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2004). Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East. Yale University Press. p. 443. ISBN 0300105835. Retrieved 15 February 2017.

External links

• Illustration of the Wesleyan College Chapel, Didsbury, Lancashire (The British Architect: A Journal of Architecture and the Accessory Arts, Volume 2, 1874)
• Didsbury Methodist Church - website of the present-day church
• "New Atmos Head Office - EN Blog". Atmos International. Archived from the original on 15 February 2017. Retrieved 15 February 2017. - photographs of the converted office interior