St Philip's Church, Salford

St Philip’s Chapel Street stands on Wilton Place off Chapel Street in Salford, a Grade II* listed Anglican church designed by Sir Robert Smirke. Commissioned as a Commissioners’ church, it reused Smirke’s earlier design for St Mary’s in Bryanston Square, London. The tower echoes the form used at Wandsworth’s St Anne’s. Completed between 1822 and 1824, the building received a grant of £16,004 from the Church Building Commission. In 1895 J. Medland Taylor reorganised the interior, and in 1962 the neighbouring parish of St Stephen merged with St Philip’s after its church closed. The church’s Greek Revival exterior is built in ashlar stone with a semi-circular portico on the south side. A bell tower rises above the portico, capped by a dome with four clock faces made by Whitehurst and Company of Derby. The west front has three doorways, the central one pedimented. Inside, galleries run along three sides, and the east window’s stained glass dates from the mid to late 19th century, designed by R. B. Edmundson of Manchester. A First World War memorial by Humphries, Jackson and Ambler occupies the southeast chapel. Today the church holds three Sunday services, including a 10:45 am contemporary service with children’s groups. Weekly activities range from Alpha courses to Chapel Tots, a foodbank and youth groups. It works closely with St Philip’s Church of England Primary School on Barrow Street. The organ, built in 1829 by Renn and Boston, was restored several times, most recently by Noel Mander in 1963.