St Martin

The artistic creators of this church include architects John Sedding and Henry Wilson, and designer craftsmen William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown and Christopher Whall.

It was founded in 1867 (the first part of the building completed in 1870), and funded by our benefactor Mrs Ann Hudson, who inherited Brabyns Park, Marple Bridge, in the 1860s.  She and her family were followers of the ‘Oxford Movement’ and required a church which reflected their high church principles.  Ann provided the land for the church and her daughter Maria Ann Hudson paid for the building.

They initially hired a rising young architect of the Gothic Revival school, who in turn commissioned the newly successful design firm of William Morris.

The church is a quiet building of Pennine sandstone, and the architect (at first Edmund Sedding, succeeded after his premature death by his brother John Dando Sedding) followed the integrity of medieval models, but used the principles of the Arts and Crafts Movement in their design.

Our windows are fine works of art, in the pre-Raphaelite style favoured by William Morris and his colleagues.  We have a beautiful plaster panel of angels in similar style, in the chancel.

Extensions to the church were designed by architect Henry Wilson, including the Lady Chapel (1895) with its barrel-vault ceiling with painted gesso decoration of birds, and trees.

As well as these and other artistic features, the church has an organ by ‘Father Willis’, still little altered from its original condition and of interest to church musicians.

The many decorations of the church add up to a harmonious whole, which repays a visit.