St. Chad, Cheetham Hill

Introduction

Saint Chad in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, is a Roman Catholic church with an attached presbytery, now an oratory, built in 1847 by Weightman and Hadfield in buff sandstone in Perpendicular Gothic style. It is the first post-emancipation Catholic church in Manchester.

History

The church was begun in 1846 as successor to an earlier St Chad's on Rook Street built in the 1770s. Its opening ceremony in 1847 was the first performance in Manchester of Catholic ritual on a grand scale in 300 years. The church was restored by Frank Reynolds between 1949 and 1951 and reordered by Greenhalgh & Williams in 1965. Since 2012 the church has been the Manchester home of the Congregation of the Oratory of St Philip Neri.

Architecture and furnishings

The church is built of coursed rubble Todmorden summit sandstone with slate roofs. The plan comprises a nave with south-west tower, north and south aisles, and a chancel with north and south chapels. The tower is very substantial, of three stages with a narrow south-west vice, and an embattled parapet with a small crocketed spire over the vice. The east window of 1847 by Barnett of York depicts scenes from the life of St Chad.

The high altar contains relics of St Chad. 1856 murals of the life of St Chad are partially visible through later overpainting. The belfry has a single 18cwt bell by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. There is a memorial to Sgt James Nicholson, killed in action in 1915, in the form of a Pieta statue.

The church has a low weathered plinth all around. The church has a large five-light traceried east window with stopped hoodmould and angle buttresses. The nave has mostly paired two-light north and south clerestory windows. The west wall has a very large traceried five-light west window and a moulded doorway below this, both with likeness hoodmould stops.

The church has a north aisle with a similar, three-light, traceried window to the left of the west wall. The church has a west face of the tower with a small three-light west window with hollow-moulded surround, tracery and likeness-stopped hoodmould. The Lady chapel is gabled and has a three-light traceried east window with four-centred arch head, hoodmould and stops. St Philip's chapel is gabled with two, two-light windows and its west return has a three-light, low-pointed arched window with hoodmould and angel stops.

The north aisle has a doorway with ogee-head with crockets and a statue niche above. The church has a very richly-carved pulpit with canopy and crocketed pinnacles. The Lady chapel has an east window depicting Mary Auxiliam Christianorum and images representing other titles of the virgin. The south porch is lined with decorative tiles and contains a holy water stoup.

The chancel has a marble and terrazzo floor. The nave has six-bay arcades of pointed double-chamfered arches on octagonal piers with embattled capitals, a hammerbeam roof and terrazzo aisle floors, with a mosaic at the foot of the sanctuary. The south aisle has a modern war memorial at the east end incorporating an older carving. The boundary walls to the north and west sides of the churchyard are of coursed sandstone rubble with ashlar coping.

The church has a statue of St Chad in a corner niche on the tower. The north aisle has five gargoyles said to represent deadly sins. The church has a piscina and sedilia that survive. St Philip's chapel has elaborately-carved communion rails and a similar screen.

The church has similar canopies surmounting statues on either side of the chancel arch. The church has a modern access ramp at the south porch.