Listing Text

SJ 99NE
4/183

STALYBRIDGE
DEARDEN STREET
Congregational Church with Churchyard walls, Gates and Gatepiers.

GV
II
Congregational church. 1859-62 by W.F. Poulton and W.H. Woodman of Reading.
Snecked rock-faced millstone grit rubble with freestone dressings: decorative
Welsh slate roof with crested ridge tiles. Nave and aisles under common
roof; integral Narthex and stairs to galleries; organ chamber and various
offices E. of the rostrum. Early Decorated style. Tall 2-light window to
aisles, 5 light nave W window, much cusping and 2 transoms; buttresses with
set-offs and gables, the lower gables resting on cast-iron columns. Portal
with transom under hood mould incorporating datestone (1862) at apex. Side
elevation with tall 2-light windows; buttresses with weathered set-offs.
Narrow W bays with doorway (to gallery) under pierced quatrefoil. E end:
marked by asymmetrical Various rooms and offices all under different roofs:
partioned pyramided, canted and lean-to; lancets to ground floor,
spherical traceried triangles to organ loft; stair turret marked by
diagonal dressed stone bands. All this presents a lively and imaginative
display to the principal street. Interior: with the exception of the 1871
organ and some other furnishing, largely intact. Complex false hammer-beam
roof (with tie rods), supported on cast-iron columns (barley-sugar to galleries),
now partly obscured by false ceiling. Gallery frontals with raised diamond
bracing over boarding, the rail supported by a tier of open ironwork. Simple
benches with poppeye head ends. Central timber pulpit, octagonal open to
top, panelled below, all on a stone base with marble shafts. Associated
rostrum furnishings. Organ with decoration intact. Simple furniture to
galleries.
Note: Poulton and Woodman were one of the principal architects of Congregational
churches who are notable for combining the open auditorium central spaces
required with elaborate Puginian open roofs.

Listing NGR: SJ9633898505