Church of All Saints and Martyrs, Langley

This church complex, designed in 1963–1964 by Albert Hilton Walker of the Manchester practice Leach, Rhodes & Walker, comprises a church, chapel and church hall. The striking sanctuary cross, known as the Langley Cross, was created by the sculptor Geoffrey Clarke.

Materials

The external walls are built of narrow, hard red brick with reinforced concrete roof structures and dressings. The church roof is clad in copper, while the church hall has sheet roofing. Inside, the walls are finished in beige, fair-faced rustic brick.

Plan

The church is physically aligned north-east to south-west, though for clarity this description uses liturgical compass points (with the altar at the liturgical east end).

The building features a large coffin-shaped nave and sanctuary with a pointed west-end baptistery. A slightly smaller coffin-shaped church hall joins the north side of the sanctuary at right angles. On the south side of the sanctuary stands a single-storey choir transept with an attached single-storey vestry that has a basement. Flanking the baptistery, a glazed corridor on the south-west side connects to a small polygonal chapel, while on the north-west side a projecting entrance porch provides access. Two single-storey former flats, along with a kitchen and lavatories, are attached at the west end of the church hall.

Exterior

The narrow, hard red bricks are laid in English garden wall bond (three stretchers to one header) for the church and chapel, and in stretcher bond for the church hall and ancillary buildings.

The church roof is covered in patinated copper sheeting that extends over the guttering. Towards the west end rises a slender steel-framed flèche, partially clad in fibreglass, housing a non-operational bell and topped with a simple Latin cross finial. The west end, which faces the road, is sharply pointed like a ship's prow. A full-height zigzag angled window fills this end, its grid-like concrete frame glazed with panes of graduated French amber and clear glass. The angled brick elevations flanking this west window each have a deep, pointed-arch concrete lintel above a shallow window—one over the chapel corridor on the right, the other over the entrance porch on the left. From here, the nave walls change angle, sloping inward towards the east end. Large full-height windows with slightly recessed concrete grid frames and clear glazing light both sides of the nave. The concrete ring-beam is visible externally above these windows. Above the south transept choir and vestry, the south elevation displays patterned fenestration: recessed vertical lines of narrow clear lights alternating with individual narrow vertical lights filled with coloured glass. Similar patterned fenestration appears on the north elevation above the church hall roof. The east end, formed of two slightly angled planes, is blind.

The south-west polygonal chapel stands at an angle, linked to the church by a glazed corridor. Its roof also has patinated copper sheeting. The outermost east end of the chapel is fully fenestrated with a full-height concrete grid frame forming two angled planes, glazed in amber, blue, green and clear glass above an apron of textured panels. The blind brick side walls angle inward towards the corridor at the rear. The corridor itself is glazed on both sides, with glazed double doors facing the road.

The south choir transept is slightly inset from the vestry, whose flat roof is stepped down. The transept's west elevation has a full-width glazed screen with a replacement timber grid frame; its east elevation is blind. The vestry has a concrete plinth. Its west elevation shows a bricked-up horizontal basement window and, on the right side, a full-height window that has been partially blocked to leave a ground-floor window with concrete lintel and multi-pane vertical glazing in a timber frame. The south elevation has a small blocked basement window and a partially blocked full-height opening with concrete lintel, now containing a door and overlight. The east elevation has a full-height window with concrete lintel and multi-pane vertical glazing in a timber frame.

The church hall has a lower roof covered in pale grey sheeting. Its north end is wrapped by the flat-roofed single-storey block containing the former flats, kitchen and lavatories. The hall's west elevation has two full-height windows with multi-pane timber frames. The adjacent south elevation of the flat-roofed block features a recessed doorway with timber double doors having vertical strip glazing, next to a horizontal rectangular three-light window. The hall's east elevation has a double fire door. Other elevations of the flat-roofed block have large horizontal rectangular windows with concrete sills, most currently boarded up.

The small north-west entrance porch has a flat roof and glazed timber double doors with sidelights, reached by a wide flight of steps.

Interior

The interior walls of the church are faced in beige brick, except for the rendered east wall, painted dull blue-green. The floors are timber. The sanctuary and choir transept floors are raised one step, with simple timber altar rails. The nave and sanctuary share a slightly pitched roof supported by a substantial concrete ring-beam cast in-situ, forming a geometrical pattern of intersecting concrete crossbeams. Between these crossbeams are recessed blue wood-wool insulation slabs.

The interior is dominated by the 11-metre-tall sanctuary cross—the Langley Cross—designed by sculptor Geoffrey Clarke. Conceived with a strong spiritual dimension, the sculpture engages the viewer and provokes reflection through imagery that is both personal and universally accessible. Cast in aluminium, the relief comprises textured and shaped panels suggesting wooden slats with projecting square nail heads, evoking Joseph's trade as a carpenter. The lower tapering shaft can be read as a ladder with five rungs or footholds, perhaps symbolic of Jacob's ladder or the five wounds of Christ, ascending heavenward to God, represented as a central open roundel containing a Latin cross. Shaped transverse arms radiate outward; the right-hand arm partially cradles a circular disc representing earth, balancing the terrestrial with the celestial roundel. The cross apex reaches into the roof structure, overlapping the concrete crossbeams, and stands on a high base so it can be seen above the mahogany altar, which is itself raised on two shallow steps of blue brick and concrete. To the left of the altar stands a pulpit and attached ambo constructed of blue brick, concrete and timber. A flight of five steps leads to the church hall on the left (now partitioned off by a recessed inserted wall). The sanctuary opens into the choir transept on the right. On the transept's west wall hangs a crucifixion painted in an expressionist manner on a vestment-shaped canvas by Robert Mann, lecturer in painting at De Salle College of Education, Manchester. At the rear, a plain timber door opens into the vestry.

To each side of the sanctuary is a cantilevered concrete gallery painted white, above which the patterned fenestration admits light. The left-hand gallery supports the pipe organ.

The nave is lit by two full-height windows with plain glazing. The baptistery, raised one step, is illuminated by the amber and clear glass of the angled west window. The concrete font has a curved rectangular shape on a cruciform pedestal standing on a square black granite base inscribed with gilded rays. The entrances from the north-west porch and south-west chapel corridor have similar timber and glazed screens with double doors featuring vertical strip glazing.

The chapel corridor is tiled with square cream tiles. The entrance to the church is reached by a flight of timber steps with balustrades of slender metal balusters and wide timber panel handrails.

The chapel has similar beige brick walls and a timber floor with a step up to the sanctuary. Its roof has concrete wall plates and crossbeams. Affixed to a side wall are narrow brass plaques from the First World War memorial originally attached to arcade piers in Holy Trinity, Rochdale. These record the names of all those from the parish who fought in the war, with those who did not return inscribed in red. A particularly unusual feature is that they are listed by the street from which they came.

The church hall has beige brick walls and a timber floor. The roof is concealed by a later suspended ceiling. The former flats have plain timber doors with simple timber architraves.