Church Heritage Record 624359

Eight bay nave, narrower chancel in single bay.  Single storey vestry at the east end. Three sided gallery.

28 m x 14 m (c.90ft x 45ft)

St John’s was built in 1834 by the Church Commissioners with money from a Million Grant which was designated for churches in manufacturing districts. It was originally built as a Chapel of Ease to Rochdale. The architect was Lewis Vulliamy (1791-1871) of the famous clock making family. Vuillamy worked with Robert Smirke before establishing his own London practice with much success.

Vuillamy used variations of this simple Gothic preaching box design on at least three other churches. Spotland, St Clement is particularly similar and was built the year after St John’s from the same grant and is on a slightly larger scale. However Vuillamy was capable of much more and his works in London included the lavish Dorchester House on Park Lane (demolished 1929) and the Italianate church of All Saints in Ennismore Gardens, Kensington.

The church is a very simple structure using the Lancet style. The nave has eight narrow bays each with a single tall pointed lancet. Between each bay is a thin buttress terminating underneath the continuous hoodmould linking the lancets. Each buttress has a weathering at the top and another where it passes through a continuous sillmould. The westernmost bay on both the north and south elevations has a shorter lancet with an arched doorway set underneath.

At either end of the nave the corner buttresses rise to meet a weathered plinth and terminate with a gablet. The pitch of the roof is shallow and hidden beyond the plinth.

The east and west ends each have a narrower projection for the sanctuary at the east end and the small bell cupola at the west. At the junction with the nave on each corner rises a thin octagonal pinnacle.

The west end elevation has three lancets, the central one raised slightly higher with an arched doorway beneath. The elevation is pitched creating a gable end with a weathered plinth. Gableted buttresses with single weatherings are positioned on either side of the gable. Low lean-to porches with entrances from the west adjoin either side of the west end against the west wall of the nave.

There is a small four-sided gabled bellcote with a clockface at the top of each small louvred lancet opening with a central finial.

The east elevation projection has the same gable end as described for the west but here there is one large window of four equal lancets with roundels under a pointed arch. The south side has a small stone shed leaning against the junction with the nave. Below the east window there is a single storey vestry with a double pitched roof creating a paired gable end. Each gable has a rectangular window and there is an external door to the south.

Moving inside, the west door leads through a small narthex into the nave underneath the gallery. The font is positioned to the south and the area here underneath the rear two bays occupied by the gallery is screened with curtains. There are Creed and Commandment boards on the west wall. There are two recessed arches to the north and south walls of the westernmost bay which still read externally as doorways; both have been filled and painted with murals in white and blue. Doorways at either side of the west wall lead up to the stairways to the gallery. The west windows are only partially visible from the stairwells.

The gallery extends around to the chancel arch on the south side but terminates earlier on the north against the organ which was repositioned from the west gallery. The gallery is still pewed; the front has a carved blind arcade and is supported by thin painted cast iron columns.  Beneath the gallery there are narrow walkways but no aisles.

The west wall has three blind pointed arches and there is access to a higher slim tier of the gallery (possibly added in 1844).

The two eastern bays of the nave have been demarcated as a chancel and there is a number of ornately carved & brattished screens dividing and partitioning the area including a Lady Chapel on the south side. The chancel is raised on three steps with a good quality marble floor which was laid in 1934. The carved screens were added at various dates in the early part of the last century but give an overall impression of a coherent scheme of woodwork. The pulpit, lectern and canopied clergy stall all add to the detail at the east end.

The wide chancel arch leads into the small sanctuary projection and is flanked on either side by a large painted scene of angels (1898); now deteriorating badly.

The roof is constructed with fine semi-ceiled king-post trusses, which have cusped arcading.