One of a pair of outstanding early nineteenth century Catholic churches in Wigan. A secular church built in 1818, its gothic style offers a bold and presumably deliberate contrast to the classicism of the nearby Jesuit church of St John. The church is a delightful essay in Commissioners-style gothic, with a vaulted and galleried interior and original and later furnishings of note.

In 1573 the Bishop of Chester described the Catholics of Wigan as ‘stubborn recusants’, and the old faith was to endure in the town throughout penal times. Wigan was a centre of Jacobitism in 1715 and 1745, and was chosen as one of the earliest English Jesuit missions. St John’s, Standishgate (q.v.) was established by the Jesuits in 1723 and rebuilt in 1819. St Mary’s was its secular rival, built within two hundred yards. The foundation stone of the rebuilt St John’s was laid first, but St Mary’s was the first to be completed, in 1818. Building was financed in part by the Greenough family, who are commemorated on a wall tablet. The gothic design of the church was no doubt a deliberate contrast to the classicism of St John’s. The architect is unknown, but there are stylistic similarities with some of the churches of John Palmer of Manchester.

St Mary’s was served by the Revd Charles Middlehurst from the time of its opening in 1818 until his death from cholera in 1848. He was buried ‘in a vault beneath the vestry at the north entrance to the chapel’ but was later commemorated with a handsome brass in the chantry chapel on the south side of the church, which was founded by Ralph Greenough in honour of St Joseph in 1852.

The red brick presbytery was added in 1882, from designs by James O’Byrne of Liverpool (plans in Archdiocesan Archives).

In 1890 the chancel was enlarged, with the addition of three-light windows at the side, and a fine new high altar and reredos with tabernacle throne, by Pugin & Pugin of London. The sacristy accommodation was presumably also rebuilt at this time.

In 1908, large low-relief plaster panels of the Annunciation were installed on either side of the altar, designed and made by the artist and sculptor Thomas Mewburn Crook, who four years earlier had provided the plaster panels of prophets and saints under oak canopies, ten on each side of the sanctuary. For the altar in the Lady Chapel, Crook also designed and carved the Seravezza marble statue of the Virgin and side panels of the Visitation and the Coronation of the Virgin, also in Seravezza (1911). The alabaster pulpit (1913), given in memory of John Wood JP, was Crook’s design, and Crook also painted the Stations of the Cross.

In 1918 a parishioner, Thomas James Arkwright, donated to the church Crook’s statue of St Anthony of Padua and the Christ Child (‘The Vision of Chateauneuf’), another version of which had been exhibited at the Royal Academy that year. This was set up near the baptistery, within an alabaster surround, to serve as a memorial to the parish dead of the Great War. Also at the west end of the church, in a surround of similar in style and date, is a marble statue of St Teresa of Lisieux, in memory of Benjamin and Jane Blackburn.

The church escaped radical post-Vatican II reordering. A forward altar was given in 1969.

Description

See list description below and description above. Additional information:

• The quatrefoil piers of the nave arcades are one part iron and three parts timber, not just timber as stated in the list description;
• The church has an attractive polychrome paint scheme, presumably late twentieth century but possibly based on earlier evidence;
• Pugin & Pugin’s marble and alabaster high altar with tall gothic canopy to the tabernacle throne was added in 1890;
• At the west end of the south aisle, the stone font is placed within a railed baptistery enclosure. The font is inscribed with the date MDCCCLI (1851) and has an elaborate oak cover.
• The original seating survives in the galleries, plain with a grained finish;
• The alleys between the benches in the nave (1867) are paved with encaustic tiles;
• The first organ was rebuilt in 1861. It was in turn replaced in 1927 by an instrument designed by Dr J.H.R. Dixon and built by Ralph Mayer of Ainscough (Preston). This was fitted with electropneumatic action by Harold Hamblett in c.1950.
• In his chantry chapel, a handsome brass set into the floor to Fr Middlehurst, the first mission priest, in vestments under a canopy;
• Stained glass was installed in several of the aisle windows in the 1870s, all (apart from in St Joseph’s chapel) from designs by William Gardner of St Helens, who also worked at nearby St John’s about this time.

Text amended and new photos added by AHP, 22.01.25

List description

II*

Roman Catholic church. 1818; altered. Sandstone ashlar, with sides and rear of coursed squared sandstone; slate roof. Gothick style with Perpendicular features to the facade. PLAN: rectangular plan set back from, and at right-angles to street, with integral narthex, nave with north and south aisles, short chancel.

EXTERIOR: a 2-storey 5-bay symmetrical facade, the centre gabled and the outer bays (ends of aisles) lower; with pilaster-buttresses modulated to tall diagonal crocketed pinnacles and an embattled parapet with a bellcote at the apex of the gable. The wide centre bay has a large 2-centred arched 5-light transomed window with surround chamfered in 3 orders, ogee-headed lights on both levels, dense geometric Perpendicular tracery in the head, and a hood-mould. The flanking bays each have a Tudor-arched doorway with double-chamfered surround, hollow spandrels and a hood-mould, and a 2-centred arched 2-light window above. All these windows have geometrical small-paned stained glass. Lower outer bays have diagonal buttresses. The 5-bay side walls have tall 2-centred arched 3-light transomed windows with flush transoms and mullions. The chancel has a 5-light window with eclectic tracery.

INTERIOR: 5-bay aisle arcades of slender clustered wooden columns and moulded 2- centred arches; galleries to 3 sides, with Gothick traceried front panelling; closed trusses to a shallow-pitched ceiling with moulded ribs and large foliated bosses; glazed screen below west gallery, with Gothick tracery and leaded glazing; curved stone staircases to gallery in both front corners.

(Little B: Catholic Churches since 1623: London: 1966-; Watkin D: The Buildings of Britain: Regency: London: 1982-).

Listing NGR: SD5851306150

Heritage Details