St Augustine's Church, Pendlebury

St Augustine's Church
St Augustine's Church
53°30′14″N 2°11′31″W / 53.5038°N 2.192°W / 53.5038; -2.192Coordinates: 53°30′14″N 2°11′31″W / 53.5038°N 2.192°W / 53.5038; -2.192
Location	Pendlebury, Greater Manchester
Country	England
Denomination	Anglican
Website	Official website
History
Dedication	St Augustine
Consecrated	May 1874
Architecture
Functional status	Active
Heritage designation	Grade I
Architect(s)	George Frederick Bodley
Architectural type	Church
Style	Gothic Revival
Groundbreaking	1871
Completed	1874
Specifications
Materials	Red brick
Administration
Parish	Swinton and Pendlebury
Deanery	Eccles
Archdeaconry	Salford
Diocese	Manchester
Province	York

St. Augustine’s Church is an active Anglican church in Pendlebury, Greater Manchester, England. Dedicated to St Augustine, it is part of the benefice of Swinton and Pendlebury along with St Peter's Church in Swinton and All Saints' Church in Wardley. The church is in the Eccles deanery, the archdeaconry of Salford and the diocese of Manchester. The church was granted Grade II* listed status in 1966 but has since been upgraded to Grade I.

Called the "Miners' Cathedral", due to its almost cathedralesque stature, in the heart of a one time coal-mining community, it was also sometimes locally called "Gussie's".

The church is situated on Bolton Road (A666) and has a connected primary school.

Manchester banker, Edward Stanley Heywood of Heywood's Bank commissioned G. F. Bodley to design the church in March 1870. Its foundation stone was laid in the following September and it was consecrated in May 1874. Heywood paid for its construction, decoration and furnishings. The church was constructed to the design of Bodley and Thomas Garner between 1871 and 1874. The cost, £3,300 (£280,000 in 2015) was largely borne by Heywood.

Bodley designed a bell tower for the south-east side, higher than the main roof, but it was not built.

The church is built of red brick and has clay tile roof and stone dressings. It was inspired by the Gothic cathedrals in Albi and Toulouse in France. Its nave and chancel occupy ten bays under a continuous roof. The church has a door at the west end, a porch on the south side and vestry on the north. The bays are separated by shallow weathered buttresses that terminate in triangular gablets above the coped parapet which has pierced quatrefoils above the chancel. The nave and chancel are differentiated by their windows. The nave has three-light windows below blank arches while the chancel has four-light windows with reticulated tracery. The east window between angled buttresses topped by crocketted pinnacles has seven lights decorated with flowing reticulated tracery. The west window has five lights.