St. Thomas's Church, Blackburn Street, Radcliffe, Lancashire, ENGLAND

(Originally built 1819 and replaced in 1864)

One of the most dramatic visual improvements to central Radcliffe in the post-war years has been the cleaning of St Thomas's church in 1972 and the grassing, a dozen years earlier, of its large churchyard.

This involved the removal of some 1,200 headstones, with just two left to commemorate the thousands buried there. This picture, showing untended grass, shrubs and blackened gravestones that had once been scrubbed and donkey-stoned by loving relatives of the departed, is a telling reminder why the move was felt necessary in 1959.

Another major improvement among very many at St Thomas's church in the post-war years was the removal of the by then superfluous side galleries in 1959.

This is typical of the shabby scene below them shortly before they went; the equivalent spot today is almost unrecognisable from this photograph.

A painted jewel of a church – but one that exacted a heavy toll on maintenance funds. The image to the below shows St. Thomas’s chancel arch shortly after its restoration in 1914.

The registers for St. Thomas’s can be seen at Manchester Library amongst other places.

HISTORY

q              1819 – First Church of St. Thomas on the site of the present church

q              1852 – “The Institution” was built in Irwell Street, serving as a Mechanics’ Institute and then a school. When it passed into Anglican hands the building came to house, in 1862, a church mission serving the Stand Lane area.

q              1862 – St. Thomas’s church demolished and rebuilt (consecreated 9^th October, 1864)

q              1866 – New church of St. John the Evangelist consecrated

q              1870/71 – Tower added to St. Thomas’s church

q              1912/14 – St. Philip’s church built as a mission of St. Thomas’s

q              1974 – The parish of St. Thomas and St. John was formed from the two earlier parishes

q              1975/76 – St. Philip’s Community Centre built to replace the dilapidated St. Philip’s church. St. John’s church demolished

q              1991 – The parishes of St. Thomas, St. John and St. Mary’s formed into Radcliffe Team

q              2000/01 – Major restoration work on St. Thomas and St. John’s church