Roman Catholic Church of St Wilfrid is a Grade II listed building in the Manchester local planning authority area, England. First listed on 18 December 1963. Church.
Roman Catholic Church of St Wilfrid
- WRENN ID
- tattered-gutter-blackthorn
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- Manchester
- Constituency
- Manchester Rusholme MP: Afzal Khan (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 18 December 1963
- Type
- Church
- Address
- Roman Catholic Church of St Wilfrid, Birchvale Close
- OS grid reference
- SJ 833 969
- Coordinates
- 53.46904, -2.25295
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Roman Catholic Church of St Wilfrid, built in 1842 by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, is a notable example of Early English style architecture. Constructed from red brick in English bond with sandstone dressings and a slate roof, the church features a nave with north and south aisles, confessionals attached to the south aisle, an uncompleted north-west tower, and a chancel with a north chapel.
The six-bay nave includes small lancet clerestory windows, while the west end showcases a two-centred arched doorway with a double-chamfered surround and two lancet windows above. The aisles are supported by pilaster buttresses and narrow lancets. The south aisle features a gabled porch at the second bay with a double-chamfered two-centred arched doorway, along with three gabled confessionals, each having two small lancets and a quatrefoil above. At the west end of the north aisle, the base of the intended tower includes a two-centred arched doorway flanked by two pairs of shafts, adorned with two orders of deeply undercut double roll-moulding and a hoodmould with figured stops, along with a niche above the doorway and a pyramidal roof.
The two-bay chancel has a triple-lancet east window with a linked hoodmould and a wheel window above it. Inside, the church is plastered and painted in light grey shades. The aisle arcades consist of tall double-chamfered two-centred arches on low octagonal piers, while the chancel arch features semi-octagonal responds and a triple chamfer. The nave roof is supported by elegantly slender collared queen-post trusses with unusual linking purlins that are arch-braced from these posts, and arch braces from wall-posts to tie-beams, all with painted small chamfers. A statue of the Virgin is located to the left of the chancel arch, complete with a tall crocketed canopy, and the pulpit is integrated with the pier on the right side, accessible through a doorway. The west gallery houses a tall narrow organ in the center, and there are sedilia in the chancel, along with good stained glass in the east windows.
Local climate
Roman Catholic Church of St Wilfrid sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 1,060 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 85% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 77% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 43 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 81% of listed buildings. Of these, 23 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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