An attractive small late nineteenth-century brick church in Perpendicular Gothic style, by a local architect of regional significance, forming a good group with the adjacent Methodist church and hall. 

Designs were in place by August 1892 for what was to be the first church founded from Goldenhill. It was built in 1892-3 from designs by the Leek architects William Sugden & Son. The church was opened by Bishop Ilsley on 8 February 1893. The cost of the church, attached presbytery and school, was £4,200, met in large part by the convert W. F. Craig, of Milton House, Alsager. Kidsgrove became an independent mission in the same year. The church is now served from Goldenhill.

Description

The church is an attractive late nineteenth-century essay in Perpendicular Gothic style, of red brick with stone dressings and under a plain tile roof. The aisleless nave is of five bays, with a shorter and lower sanctuary. The chief architectural display is reserved for the entrance front, with a wide seven-light west window with Perpendicular tracery. Above this, there is a statue of St John under a canopy in a niche, forming part of a stone gable feature. Piers at the corners are surmounted by broad crocketed stone finials. The entrance is at the centre, through a modern, cheaply constructed wooden porch. At the sides, the bays of the nave each are lit by high-set square-headed windows with triple cusped lights, and are separated by stepped buttresses with stone offsets. There is a four-light window lighting the sanctuary on the north side, and a circular window with curvilinear tracery in the east wall of the chancel. A flat-roofed extension previously on the north side has recently been removed, to the benefit of the appearance of the church and its immediate setting.

Internally the walls are plastered and painted cream. Over the nave is a segmental-shaped ceiling while there is a plain pitched roof over the sanctuary with angel busts at the base of the principal rafters. A brick arch separates the nave and sanctuary. At the west end there is a gallery. No fittings or furnishings call for mention other than the (painted) stone reredos with four niches with angels focusing on a central niche. The original marble alter frontal survives but has been set back against the east wall.

*Update: A large war memorial Calvary group in front of the main entrance of the church was listed grade II in 2016, following Taking Stock: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1431742*

Heritage Details