Anglican Church Of St Benedict

The Anglican Church of St Benedict, now a parish rooms, was built in 1880 in Ardwick, Manchester, by JS Crowther. It incorporates a clergy house and Sunday School rooms. The church is constructed of red brick in header bond with orange brick dressings and stone tracery, and has slate roofs. It is designed in the Early English style.

The church features a tall nave with a low aisle to the south, a tall north-west tower, and a low, two-story clergy house attached to the north. It also includes a tall chancel with low transepts. The west front is buttressed, with a two-centred arched doorway featuring three orders of moulding, including shafts, two cusped doorways, a traceried tympanum with multifoils, a band of tall blank arcading with shafts, and a large rose window. The square, buttressed tower, rising in three stages above eaves level, has a two-light window at ground floor, small lancets at the next three stages, a belfry stage with tourelle pinnacles, louvred two-light windows, a machicolated pierced parapet, and a steep pyramidal roof. The south side, with six bays, has pilaster strips and large two-centred arched four-light windows with geometrical tracery to the nave, smaller lancets to the aisle, chancel windows resembling those of the nave, coupled gabled transepts below, and a large seven-light east window with rich geometrical tracery. The clergy house, two stories tall with eleven bays, features segmental-pointed windows on the ground floor, arched windows on the first floor, four gabled dormers with finials, and coupled gables at either end.

Inside, stone quatrefoil piers support brick arcades and a tall clerestory. Elaborate hammerbeam and arch-braced roofs cover the nave and chancel. The chancel is raised above the nave and accessed by a flight of six steps, which were altered in the 20th century. A baldacchino was added around 1960, while original iron parclose screens remain. The east window contains stained glass dating to around 1885. A brick chancel wall incorporates a stone lectern supported by a life-size sculpture of an angel, created around 1900 by W Cecil Hardisty and EF Long. A pulpit from 1907 is also present. Vestry furnishings include cupboards and wardrobes designed by Crowther. Stained glass is also found in the aisle windows by TF Curtis, Ward and Hughes, and others, largely by Ward and Hughes, and in the large west rose window.

The church’s design cleverly integrated it with the surrounding brick terraces through the two-story clergy house and attached rooms on its north side. It is considered the most original of JS Crowther’s church designs.