St Alban

St Alban's church in Macclesfield is a Roman Catholic parish church. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building.

It was designed by the famous Victorian architect AWN Pugin, also famous for his involvement in the Palace of Westminster. St Alban’s is described by Historic England as a 'church of exceptional interest among the works of this major architect'.

St Alban’s is one of the oldest churches in England to be in continuous use for Catholic worship. It was designed in 1838 and built between 1839 and 1841. St Alban’s was AWN Pugin’s second major church and is an excellent example of his early Perpendicular Gothic. Pevsner describes St Alban's as 'a Pugin church of considerable size and unstinted design'.

Fortunately, it still retains many significant features that are not just typical of Gothic churches but characteristic of Pugin’s own style of design, including the elaborately carved stone altar and structural features, the abundance of images of the saints either as carved statues or in stained glass windows, the richly painted details and stencilling, the encaustic tiled floors, the sedilia where the clergy would be seated and, perhaps most striking of all, the incorporation of fixtures such as the rood screen with its large crucifix with 15th century German or Flemish figures from Louvrain. In addition to its beautiful and dignified interior, St Alban's also provides a dignified and spiritual place for quite reflection.