The Church of St John the Evangelist is in Waterloo Road, Cheetham Hill,

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, England. It is an active Anglican

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

in the deanery of North Manchester, the archdeaconry of Manchester, and the diocese of Manchester. The church is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...

as a designated Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

The church was built between 1869 and 1871, and designed by the Lancaster architects Paley and Austin. Its estimated cost was £10,000 (equivalent to £ in ), and was paid for by Lewis Loyd, a member of the banking house of Jones Loyd and Company of London. As originally built, the church seated 600 people. The west porch was added in 1894.

Architecture

Exterior

St John's is constructed in

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

with tiled roofs. Its architectural style is a combination of Romanesque and Early English. The plan consists of a three- bay

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and a two-bay

apsidal In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

, with no structural division between them, north and south

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, par ...

s, a west porch, and a southwest tower. The tower is in four stages with clasping

pilaster In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...

s at the corners rising to pinnacles with pyramidal roofs; the tower itself also has a large pyramidal roof. In the bottom stage is a round-headed south doorway, and in the next stage is a single-light west window. The third stage contains blank arcading with two central lancet windows on each side, and the top stage has coupled and louvred bell openings. At the west end of the nave is a two-bay porch containing a double doorway flanked by large

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...

es. Over the porch are three lancet windows, with a multifoil window above them. Most of the windows in the body of the church are lancets.

Interior

The interior of the church is lined in bricks with stone dressings. The piers of the north arcade have a quatrefoil plan, and those of the south arcade are octagonal. At the east end of the north aisle is the organ loft, and there is a chapel at the east end of the south aisle. The wooden pulpit is carved with sunflowers and leaves, anticipating motifs used by Art Nouveau. The large sculpted reredos was installed in 1879. Also in the apse are

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

panels, and the chancel is floored with

encaustic tile Encaustic tiles are ceramic tiles in which the pattern or figure on the surface is not a product of the glaze but of different colors of clay. They are usually of two colours but a tile may be composed of as many as six. The pattern appears inla ...

s. The stained glass includes windows by C. E. Kempe with depictions of saints, leaders of the church and Sir Philip Sidney. The three- manual pipe organ was made by Hill and Son, and rebuilt in 1895 by A. Young.

References

Citations Sources * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cheetham, Church of St John the Evangelist Grade II* listed churches in Manchester Churches in Manchester Paley and Austin buildings Anglican Diocese of Manchester Gothic Revival church buildings in Greater Manchester Romanesque Revival church buildings in England Churches completed in 1871 19th-century Church of England church buildings

History

Architecture

Exterior

Interior

See also

References