Besses United Reformed Church
Coordinates: 53°32′56.92″N 2°17′38.18″W / 53.5491444°N 2.2939389°W
Besses United Reformed Church is designated a Grade II building by Historic England. It is situated between Bury New Road and Bury Old Road at Besses o' th' Barn, an area of Whitefield, Greater Manchester, England.
Besses United Reformed Church was built to serve the Congregational denomination of nonconformist Christians and was originally known as Besses Congregational Church. The United Kingdom Congregationalists and the Presbyterian Church of England merged in the 1970s to form the United Reformed Church.
The population of Besses o' th' Barn around the time of construction was approximately 8000 and, according to those involved with the church, "the means of spiritual instruction [of that population] was very scanty". The building is a bicentenary memorial erected to commemorate the secession from the established Church of England in 1662.
The structure was designed in the Gothic Revival style by Alfred Waterhouse. His design allowed for a chapel capable of holding 823 people, ancillary buildings such as the vestry, and a schoolroom on the upper storey. The latter measured 78 feet (24 m) by 33 feet (10 m) and was expected to accommodate between 500 and 600 children. The local school at that time had a roll of 200, of which 70-80 were adults.
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