Times Past

   A member of
      THE HEATON TEAM MINISTRY
     page updated : December 29, 2007

It was 1875 and Christ Church, Heaton Norris, was looking at ways to reach the people on its parish boundaries. They began with lectures and meetings in cottages and small houses. As often happens with the work of mission, more room was needed for the increasing numbers. William Hope had been the organist at Christ Church until his death whilst on a visit to the Middle East in 1883. He had been a zealous church worker and it was decided that a building would be the best way to perpetuate his memory. The Hope Memorial School was duly built on land given by Lord Egerton and paid for by the Rector of Christ Church!

The school opened it's doors as a Sunday school on 17th May 1885, as a day school on the 4th June and for Sunday evening services on the 8th November.

But this wasn't enough. All this mission activity was unstoppable. A new parish and a new church seemed the next logical step to take. Christ Church in negotiation with St John's, the neighbouring parish in Heaton Mersey, mapped out a conventional district and the Reverend Richard Pratt, curate of Christ Church was duly licensed as curate-in-charge on the 14th June 1897. The necessary legal formalities soon followed. At Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, on February 2nd 1899, Queen Victoria in council, approved the scheme. The District of Heaton Norris came into being.

Things now took on a life of their own. In October that same year, £1259 was raised in three days, towards funding the new parish church. With hardly time to breathe, work started on the church on 8th November 1899, and the contract let on the 13th November! A cryptic note in the magazine mentioned that "St Martin's Day was November 11th, which fell midway between these days". We can only assume that is how St Martin's got it's dedication.

The church was built with remarkable speed. The foundation stone was laid 26th May 1900 and just eleven months, later the church was consecrated by the Bishop of Manchester on April 18th 1901 at 11am.

The architect was R.B. Preston, a local man who did quite a bit of ecclesiastical work. He had been part of the architectural practice Preston & Vaughan which had offices in Stockport. They were responsible for All Saints, on Manchester Road. His churches at Rochdale St Ann and at Blackrod, Simister and Littleborough are considered notable. His use of header bond brickwork is especially distinctive and he is mentioned in an article on the subject by the vernacular architecture and brickwork expert R.W. Brunskill (Making Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society, 2007).

The land for the church had cost £900. Including that amount up to the time of the consecration, the church had cost a total of £6000! The seating was planned for 600, but the building was never completed. The seating dropped to 420 and the tower at the west end was never built. Schubert had his Unfinished Symphony, Norris Bank has its unfinished church. The interior was simple with its brick walls and green tinted windows. The parish had its building, now it had to be furnished. Sadly over the course of the years, this seems to have been the main preoccupation of each succeeding congregation -stained glass windows, an organ, oak panelling, carpeting and the sundry trappings deemed by some as crucial for a well-ordered parish church. This preoccupation swamped the impetus for mission. The church became merely a parish church and little else. Fortunately, in the mid-seventies, St Martin's slowly began to re-discover and re-define its raison d'être. Mission is back at the top of the agenda.

Parish Walk circa 1910 Hot Pot Supper, Sam Dooley