Church at Middlewood Hospital

SK 39 SW 564/10/10005

BRADFIELD MIDDLEWOOD ROAD (South west side) Church at Middlewood Hospital

08-OCT-1996

II Church at mental hospital. 1873-1875. Probably by Bernard Hartley, City Surveyor designer of Middlewood Hospital, 1869-71. Coursed squared rubble with ashlar dressings and slate roofs with tile ridges, coped gables and cross finials. Plinth, sill band and string courses.

Transitional style. Pointed arched windows with hood moulds, mostly single lights. Chancel, nave with aisles, transepts, porches, north cast tower. Chancel, two bays, has apse with three windows. Two windows to south. Single bay vestry, enlarged mid C20, in return angle. Pound window to cast. Nave clerestorey has ten windows each side, with linked hood moulds. West end has two taller two-light windows, and a round window above.

Aisles have each three three-light windows divided by small buttresses. North aisle west end has a four-light flat headed window with a round light above it. South aisle has a smaller version, with three pointed arched lights. North side has a window to west of the porch, south side a pointed arched door. Transepts have two gable windows, with a round window above. South transept has two windows to cast. Gabled porches have moulded pointed arched doorways, and single lancets in each side.

Square tower, two stages, has gabled roof with cross finials. Lower stage has doorway to north, and slit lights above. Recessed bell stage has corner shafts and low parapet. Double chamfered bell opening on each side, with linked hood moulds.

Interior: rendered. Chancel has moulded arch with double shaft imposts, and continuous sill band. Arch braced king post roof. To north, organ in pointed recess. To cast and south, five stained glass War Memorial windows. Flat headed door to south. Panelled ashlar altar and wrought iron rail. Transept arches have double shaft responds. Roofs as nave. North transept has pointed arched opening to east, with organ pipes, and doorway to left. Nave has pointed arched arcades, five bays, with wider arches to transepts. All have hood moulds. Alternating round and quatrefoil piers, all with stiff-leaf capitals. Clerestorey windows on sill band. Arch braced roof with turned king posts. West end has plain windows. Aisles have lean-to roofs on brackets. Single doorways to west, chamfered pointed arches to east.

Fittings include original benches and nine wrought iron standard lamps. Other fittings mid and late C20. Memorials: at west end of nave, a large Decorated style memorial board, commemorating servicemen who died in the hospital 1915-1920. Plaque on each side, in wooden surround. Several brasses to members of staff.

Listing NGR: SK3226591241