Broughton: St John the Evangelist

Ground plan:

6-bay aisled nave, west tower with clasping porches, 3-bay chancel with north vestry and south organ chamber and vestry. Crypt underneath the nave.

Dimensions:

Nave c 20m (70 ft) x 10m (35ft)

Footprint of Church buildings: 769 m²

Built 1836-39, designed by Richard Lane of Manchester, one of whose (more famous) proteges was Alfred Waterhouse. Lane worked in the Classical Revival style in the 1820s and 1830s, designing the Salford and Chorlton Town Halls as well as a Friends Meeting House (he was a Quaker himself) in this idiom before following the trend and turning to Gothic Revival at the time this church was built. Although in the stylistically naïve version of early Gothic Revival typical of a contemporary Commissioners church, it was in fact a privately endowed building, which cost £6,000. The patron who gave the land was the first vicar, the Revd John Clowes, whose tomb is on the north side of the sanctuary.

The chancel was added in 1846 by J E Gregan, a Manchester architect perhaps best known for his palazzo-style bank building on St Anne’s Square.  The perceived Ritualism of the chancel, in which it is likely A W  N Pugin was closely involved beyond the design of the stained glass, provoked controversy, and the Bishop was vitriolically opposed to it. Gregan was also responsible for the determinedly Ritualist church of St John at  Miles Platting built in 1855, and it seems that his work in tandem with Pugin at Broughton was the inspiration.  The north vestry was clearly added later, cutting across the chancel windows.

Broughton is on the line of the Roman Road from Manchester to Ribchester and Lancaster, and a Roman fort has been postulated here. Archaeological remains of this period at the church site are however unlikely.

While the church has large lancet windows to each bay typical of the simple style of Commissioners’ churches, seen from closer up one becomes aware that the building generally has more architectural detail than the typical Commissioners church. It was clearly a relatively expensive job, and the quality of the remaining furnishings and fittings confirms this impression. 

The west tower has three stages, with a 3-light Decorated window in the west face of the lower stage, and a 2-tier window and clock over. Paired belfry lights and embattled parapet. Angle buttresses rise to tall pinnacles. The porches flanking the tower have 2-light traceried windows with transoms in their west faces, and chamfered arched north and south doors.The nave is divided by buttresses, with a tall pointed 2-light transomed window with Y-tracery in each bay and an embattled parapet. The plinth is marked with Roman numerals and letters all the way around, something also noted in Commissioner’s churches of the time.

The chancel is of a different style with rock-faced coursed and squared rubble, with steep graded slate roof, little attempt has been made to match the nave in terms of articulation. The north vestry cuts across the three 2-light windows of the chancel. It has a segmental arched door and small blocked window in the east bay of similar profile, and in the west bay a 5-light mullioned stepped lancet window under a gable. On the south side the organ chamber has a narrow steep cross gable with a 2-light window and a lean-to vestry. The chancel has a 5-light Decorated east window with mouchettes, the north vestry a smaller version of this, and a wheel window in the south vestry east wall.