St Michael & All Angels

The building, dating from 1906 and designed by Lancaster architects Paley & Austin, is Grade II* listed. Its foundation stone was laid in September 1906, and the church was consecrated by the Bishop of Manchester on 2 July 1908.

It is a large building with a tall nave and side aisles. The tower on the south elevation is incomplete so as to only have a single, ground floor stage and no upper stages. It is now capped with a shallow pitched, pyramidal roof, covered, as all other original roof slopes, with terracotta ‘Rosemary’ tiles. The building’s walls are constructed of snecked sandstone with ashlar dressings. The acoustics are superb for musical and choral events. 

It has a large stained glass window, depicting Jesus, above the High Altar. It includes a chapel, now dedicated to St Mark, and provides an accessible and flexible space for formal and informal worship. The chapel contains WWI and WWII Memorials, Books of Remembrance and stained glass windows depicting important women in the bible.

The church can be readily adapted for other purposes too, providing both a classic and contemporary setting for a variety of community and corporate events and performances, and seating over 200 people. Our facilities are open to, and frequently used by, people of all faiths and none, which has opened up positive channels of communication with members of other faiths in our community. St Mark’s chapel is a comfortable space for smaller services and meetings, and is used for midweek and early Sunday services. It contains some furnishings brought from St Mark’s church when it closed.