This Grade II listed church is unique in that it is a rare and surviving example of a well designed Congregational Chapel that despite the years has remained completely unaltered and manifestly retains the integrity and completeness of the original design together with its original, fully functional, and unaltered pipe organ, and is still in use for the purpose for which it was built, Christian Worship in the Independent tradition.
These buildings originally formed Crosby Congregational Church. In 1972 the Congregational Churches in England united with The English Presbyterian Church to form The United Reformed Church in England.
Crosby Congregational Church was formed in 1884 to serve the growing population of Blundellsands and Great Crosby. Plans were drawn up for a church and schoolrooms by F & G Holme of Liverpool but due to financial constraints at first only the schoolroom, the present hall, furnished as a church seating 300 was built. The Rev T. H. Darlow, was invited to be the first minister and during his pastorate the church grew rapidly. In 1891 he received a call to a church in London and the Rev T. H. Martin was invited to take over the pastorate. Mr Martin came straight from the Mansfield College and was destined to stay for 38 years. The congregation continued to grow until congregations of between 200 and 300 were the norm and the church committee decided it was time to build the church. The original design was abandoned and Douglas and Fordham of Chester were invited to prepare new designs for a church. The design drawings for the first church have been lost and all we have is the original architect’s sketch of the exterior which shows a building in a more traditional non-conformist style. The new design adopted the cruciform style. On the 17th March 1897 the plans were finally approved and a tender for £5,700 from Messrs Hughes and Stirling was accepted. The foundation stone was laid on 22nd May 1897 by Mr A. Brown Paton, a member of the church, and the first service in the new building was held on 15th September 1898. The eventual cost including pews and all fittings was £7,457.
John Douglas practised in Chester for 50yrs. He was one of the most respected and best known provincial architects of his time. Most of his work was in the North West and North Wales and his work was published not only in Britain but in France and Germany He gave Chester some of its best known and loved building For the Duke of Westminster’s Eaton estate he designed buildings ranging from cottages to churches which helped give the estate its character. A first rate church architect most of his work was for the Anglican Church though he did design several non-conformist churches including West Kirby Congregational Church (now URC), Congregational Chapel, Over, Cheshire (now URC) and Grosvenor Park Baptist, Chester. Locally he was responsible for St Michael’s Church, Altcar and The Nags Head Inn, Thornton. Both of these were for the Earl of Sefton. He was also much in demand as a designer of country houses designing Thornton Hall for the 1st Lord Leverhulme.
He was influenced by the timber of Cheshire and Welsh border houses and the late medieval brickwork of Low Country buildings. Anything but a copyist his work is nearly always recognisable, marked by some picturesque and massive outline, careful detailing, superb sense of craftsmanship and feeling for materials. This is demonstrated in this church.
For those wishing to learn more of John Douglas, The Victorian Society, 1, Priory Gardens, London, W4 1 TI has published a biography by Edward Hubbard entitled ‘The Work of John Douglas’ ISBN 0 901657 16 6. Unfortunately this is now out of print but Liverpool Record Office has a copy.
...opened in 1898. It is built of red flecked Runcorn sandstone with a Tilberthwaite Green Westmorland graduated slate roof topped by an open sided octagonal shingle covered fleche surmounted by a cross and weathercock. The style is robust Gothic with large side buttresses pierced by the aisles. The nave has angled buttresses terminating in twin octagonal turrets. Door and windows are two centre arched openings with three light clear storey aisle windows with stepped arch lights, a large three light east window with traceried lights, an arched four light window with moulded lights and geometrical tracery to the transepts and a five light window with geometrical plate tracery flanked by cusped blind windows to the Chancel. The adjacent two storey choir vestry has as polygonal turret attached and to the east bay on the south side there is a large gable porch with coupled doorways set in four orders of mouldings
The interior is dominated by an impressive timbered roof of unusual construction with hammer beams supported on raked straight braces, arch braced collar trusses carrying two sets of wind braced purlins and with a flat boarded ceiling. Two centred arched aisle arcades on short piers line the nave with two large transept arches and a large chancel arch.
...of a very high standard, were executed by Jones and Willis of Liverpool, Birmingham and London to designs by the architects. The pews with carved ends retain the original metal brackets and troughs for umbrellas. The pulpit and reading desk, costing £60, were presented and paid for by the Sunday School. The Communion Table was the gift of the Young Peoples Society. The Font of Caen stone was the gift, in December 1900, of Mrs Rudler in memory of her father and mother. Octagonal in form with carved panels one of which bears a silver plate recording the gift. The wooden lid has wrought iron fittings. The table, chair and cross in the south transept are the gift of the family of the late Arthur Armitage, a member for 39 years. He was noted for his encyclopaedic knowledge of all the members of the church and congregation and their families and also for his handwriting — flawless copper plate.
None of the furnishings or fittings of the original church can be identified in the present church.
This very substantial instrument was built by the highly respected firm of Norman and Beard of Norwich in 1908. This particular instrument was chosen on the advice of the then Liverpool City Organist, Dr A L. Peace. It remains entirely in its original condition, both tonally and in its tubular-pneumatic mechanism apart from the insertion of one later rank of pipes which is perfectly in keeping with the style of the instrument. Even the original very early electric blowing equipment installed about 1910 is still in use.
Norman and Beard began on a very modest scale as Norman Bros, tuning organs in the 1870s in Norfolk and East Anglia. The two brothers were soon joined by G. Wales Beard and established a workshop in Norwich in the 1880s. The business rapidly flourished, and larger premises were soon required, advertised as being bigger and better equipped than any other in the industry. By the middle of the 1890’s Norman and Beard were one of the most productive, innovative and
sought after organ building enterprises in the country, reaching the height of their popularity between about 1895 and the first world war.
After the turn of the century, though, they remained very busy, one or two unwise business ventures weakened the company’s resources. In 1916, having built their largest and most ambitious instrument (for Johannesburg Town Hall) they went into liquidation and were absorbed by the long established firm of William Hill & Sons, forming the business known as Hill, Norman and Beard.
This organ comes from the best period of Norman & Beard’s work in a style that is increasingly highly valued and its survival is fortuitous.
Unusually for a non-conformist church there are many stained glass windows, the most important being the west, War Memorial, window in the chancel. This was designed by Carl Almquist and executed by Shrigley and Hunt of Lancaster. The window depicts scenes from John Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrims Progress’. It is interesting that during the 1939-45 war it was decided to have all the stained glass removed for safe keeping being replaced with plain glass. Shortly after, the replacement for this window was destroyed by bomb blast. In the south aisle there are two windows depicting a single female saint by George Frampton of Buckingham Palace Road, London and in the north aisle two windows depicting a single angel designed by George Hutchinson for James Powell of Whitechapel London. The main window in the south transept is a memorial to Rev T. H. Martin, the gift of his family.
The side aisle and porch windows are in memory of various members of the church Little is known or recorded of them except for the window high up on the right of the main entrance which commemorates Robert William Yule (Robbie), beloved only son of Robert and Elizabeth Yule, who died of meningitis on 11th April 1934 aged 19 years. He was studying at the Liverpool School of Architecture and the beautiful window depicts a young Greek architect clothed in a green and purple tunic, covered by a cloak of red with a lining of pale blue. On the ground at his feet lies a set square. This was made in Lancaster by Shrigley & Hunt where his parents and sister went to see the window being made.
...in the chancel consists of the west window, a fine brass cross, memorial plaque and panelling incorporating a number of impressed or coloured scraffitto plaster panels. The Cross was given in memory of Captain Arnyass Leigh Radford, K.L.R., killed at Gallipoli and Private Walter Leigh Radford, Royal Signals, who died of wounds received at Passchendaele. Details are on the brass plaques on the floor at the foot of the memorial. The plaque bearing the names of those killed in the 1939-45 war includes three civilians, Mrs Marjorie Smith, her son, Russell, and daughter, Cynthia. They were killed by the first bomb to fall on Crosby. Her husband, William, was out of the house on civil defence duties and survived. He is commemorated on a brass plate on the rear wall of the church.
With thanks to W.J. Vis, Architect, for notes on the building and David Wells Organ Builders for notes on the Organ