St Paul's Church, Withington

St Paul's was built in 1841, when Withington was growing from a small Lancashire village into an urban district of Manchester. Prior to the establishment of St Paul's, the nearest Anglican place of worship to Withington was at the Church of St James, Didsbury. St Paul's was built on land donated by Wilbraham Egerton, 1st Earl Egerton to provide a place of worship for local people of Withington. The church was designed by the Mancunian architectural firm Hayley & Brown, who also built a number of churches around North-West England. Soon after the foundation of St Paul's, a school was established next to the church in 1844, St Paul's Primary School, also on land donated by Lord Egerton. In…

The church is built of red brick with stone coping. Its most prominent feature is a high clock tower with square buttresses and four pinnacles. The exterior has some Neo-Norman features, notably tall, rounded-headed lancet windows and a neo-Norman west door whose arch is carved with dog-tooth ornamentation. The building was extended in 1863 by J. Lowe, adding a chancel, a southern chancel aisle and organ chamber above, supported by Romanesque arches with foliated capitals. In 1921 the chancel aisle was converted into a war memorial chapel and a small apse was built onto the east end of the chapel. The interior was renovated in the 1970s, but retains some original Victorian fittings. There…