Church Of Saint Luke

The Church of Saint Luke is a Grade II* listed church built between 1860 and 1862, designed by Joseph Clarke. It is constructed from coursed rock-faced stone with ashlar dressings and features slate roofs. The church has a tall nave with an aisle, clerestory, a south-west porch, and a north-west steeple adjacent to the north aisle. The chancel includes a clerestory, side chapels, and a vestry.

The nave consists of five bays with coupled two-light Geometrical clerestory windows set in recessed panels, and three-light aisle windows with a continuous sill band and weathering. The gabled weathered buttresses enhance the structure. The porch is notable for its elaborate niche and coped gable. The four-stage tower features angled buttresses, two-light openings at the bell stage, a clock, and a broach spire adorned with enriched banding and gabled lucarnes. The three-bay chancel has a prominent seven-light east window and a six-light west window.

Inside, the nave arcade is characterized by double-chamfered arches and quatrefoil columns with foliated capitals and small broaches, topped by an enriched hammer-beam roof. The high chancel arch is supported by marble-shafted columns and features a thin elegant iron screen added in 1888. The chancel contains heavily enriched sedilia, an Easter sepulchre, and an arcade on either side with detached shafts and a barrel vault roof. The church houses a notable collection of stained glass, including east and west windows by Hardman, aisle windows largely by Clayton & Bell, west end aisle windows by William Wailes, and a vestry window by J B Capronnier. It also features good choir stalls and benches from the time of construction, along with a later 19th-century marble and alabaster reredos and marble pulpit.

The Church of Saint Luke stands prominently in the heart of Heywood, where its immensely tall spire dwarfs surrounding buildings and serves as the main focal point of the town.