Church Heritage Record 624147

Five-bay nave with aisles and clerestorey, south-west tower and baptistery, chancel with transepts and apse; south-east vestry. There is a hall below the eastern part of the building. The vicarage forms an intrinsic part of the design, joined to the church both by the tower and by a passage further east.

Nave 17m (56ft) x 6m (20ft); aisles each 4m (13ft) wide; chancel 4.5m (15ft) x 6m (20ft); apse 2.5m (6ft) in radius. 

By Darbyshire & Smith, 1903-4 (the vicarage is dated 1904). It is claimed locally that the Earl of Egerton had this church copied exactly from a church (also St Ignatius) that he had seen in Italy near Milan.

An interesting and successful fusion of the Italian Romanesque style with the modern materials available in a leading late Victorian industrial city. Only the heaviness of some detail is out of character with the Italian originals. 

The west facade has a large round-arched doorway set within a projecting gabled frame, within which are three pairs of shafts carrying receeding terracotta arches decorated with chevron and other repeating motifs. In the tympanum is a terracotta panel of peacocks flanking a cross, a Ravennate motif also found on early Christian sarcophagi. 

The two-leaved foor has simple scrolling hinges terminating in large roses in relief. In the wall above are three windows of paired lights with a roundel in plate tracery, the middle one set higher than the outer pair. In the pediment-pitched gable is a small single light, and the edges of the gable are carried on Italianate rising arcading. The nave is separated from the aisles by slender buttresses and the end walls of the aisles again have two-light windows with roundels in plate tracery.

The tower stands to the south of the south aisle, and has a doorway identical to the west doorway.  Above it are three stages, the lowest with single lights in each face, the next with paired lights in each face and the topmost with three lights in each face, a feature typical of many central and northern Italian Romanesque towers, although here the stages are marked by more elaborately moulded stringcourses and linked hoodmoulds to the windows than the Italians thought necessary. The stage with paired lights also has terracotta decoration of lozenges on the tympanum and scrolling foliage in the spandrels, and the uppermost stage, with its three linked openings surmounted by a corbel table and a pyramid spire, is immediately reminiscent of the campanile of St Mark's, Venice. At the apex is an iron cross within a circle.

The side walls of the aisles are provided with two-light windows similar to those in their west walls, that in the centre of the north side replaced by a modern doorway, separated by thin buttresses. The bays of the clerestorey have three equal lights with linked hoods, each marked by pilaster strips. The base of the tower forms the principal entrance to the church, and on the east face is a semi-circular apse with three two-light windows to form a baptistery, this separation of the baptistery from the body of the church (though not its actual position adjoining the tower) being again an Italian motif.

The east end, though provided with an apse (its windows again of two lights with tracery roundels), is less assuredly Italian in inspiration. The chancel is slightly lower than the nave, and the yet lower, and unequal, transepts which flank it are again un-Italianate. They have more windows of two lights, that in the north gable now bricked up. Attached to the south transept gable is the vestry, with a yet lower roof and more round-headed windows (two of two lights in the south gable and another of two lights flanked by two single lights in the east gable). Below this part of the building is a hall. The vicarage which stands on the south side between the tower and the south transept/vestry is of three storeys with a hipped roof and windows of round-headed lights arranged in ones, twos and threes.

The interior has plastered and whitened walls and terracotta dressings, the floor being of wood-blocks with red tiles in the former alleys. In 1987 the building was remodelled - the chancel arch was blocked so that the nave could be used for community purposes, leaving only the chancel, apse and transepts, with a levelled floor, as the worship area.

The arcades are of five bays, with roll-moulded round arches set on red sandstone cylindrical pillars with scalloped capitals standing on square bases. The hoods which outline the arches meet at bosses of almost Celtic stylised foliage. A stringcourse runs at clerestorey sill level and at each bay it is interrupted by bell-shaped corbels carrying shafts from which rise the roof timbers. The nave has tie beams and queen posts with round-arched braces and central pendants and the aisles have tie beams and king posts. The chancel roof is similar to that of the nave but with two more pendants under the queen posts. The aisle walls have a dado of glazed red bricks. The chancel arch has two orders, the outer a continuous roll and the inner a roll carried on shafts. The eastern bay has a timber floor raised on two steps.

The chancel has few architectural features; since the division from the nave, its proportions are rather odd because of the great width of the space (especially if the transepts are included) as opposed to its length. The transepts open from the chancel through two arches carried on a cylindrical pink granite pillar with square base and scalloped capital standing between square responds.  The floor is covered with red carpet (presumably laid over tiles) and the apse floor is raised on one step. The south transept remains open, with a pine screen to the vestry at the south end, and the north transept is entirely filled by the organ. The arch to the apse repeats the design of the chancel arch, and round the lower parts of the walls, up to sill level, is round-arched blind arcading enclosing mosaic panels of lilies against gold grounds. The two-light windows are enriched with shaftshaving foliate capitals. The roof of the apse is concealed by a simple vault with panels separated by two moulded ribs and painted blue with gold stars.