St Mary in the Baum
Rochdale, Greater Manchester
St Mary in the Baum, on St Mary's Gate, was founded in 1740 as a chapel of ease to minister to the people living north of the River Roch.
The church is built on high on a raised plinth set on a diamond shaped plot. It has a Templar stone cross and pentagram, but it is the elaborate interior that is packed with masonic symbolism prompting comparisons with Rosslyn in Scotland.
Tucked away in a quiet corner of Rochdale the extraordinary church of St Edmund's may look like many other Victorian parish churches. On closer inspection it reveals a fascinating blend of gothic revival architecture and Masonic symbolism.
Described by Pevsner as ‘Rochdale's Temple to Freemasonry’, this fascinating building was created for wealthy Victorian industrialist and Freemason Albert Hudson Royds in 1870-3 by the Architects James Medland and Henry Taylor. The symbolism goes beyond architecture to the very position of the church in the Rochdale landscape.
Sitting in a diamond shaped churchyard at the highest point in the town it is making an overt reference to the Temple which dominated Jerusalem and casting Rochdale as the New Jerusalem.