Gorton Monastery

In 1861 the then Bishop of Salford, Herbert Vaughan, invited a Belgian community of Recollects, a branch of the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor, to come to Manchester and found a new church. The Franciscans arrived in Gorton in December 1861 and began work on a new friary. The construction lasted from 1863 to 1867, and most of the building work was done by the friars themselves, with a brother acting as clerk of works. The noted architect Edward Welby Pugin (1834–1875) was appointed to design the new monastery church. Pugin was the son of the celebrated architect Augustus Pugin, who championed the revival of Gothic as the style of architecture which was the ideal expression of Catholic…

Edward Welby Pugin's monastery church is a tall and imposing polychromatic red and blue brick building inspired by the late 13-century Gothic style with sandstone dressing. Unlike the traditional liturgical east and west alignment, the monastery church sits on a north–south alignment. At the north end is a polygonal apse. The south front facing the main street is elaborately decorated with Gothic features with strong vertical emphasis. Three oversized, full-height flying buttresses are surmounted by canopied statues and a large central sculpted crucifix. The pinnacle of the south front is an ornate bellcote topped with a small spire. Between the buttresses are two high lancet windows with…