St George's Church, Tyldesley

St George’s Church stands in Tyldesley, a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in Greater Manchester. It is an Anglican parish church built in the Early English Gothic style with a seven-bay nave and a tower rising to 150 feet. The church was founded in 1825 as a chapel of ease to Leigh Parish Church, becoming a district parish four years later. Its sandstone walls came from Peel Quarry in Little Hulton, and the tower has a recessed octagonal spire with flying buttresses at each corner. The church is worth the journey for its history and surviving fittings. It was one of 174 churches built under the Church Building Act of 1818, partly funded by £17,000 from Parliament. The architect Robert Smirke designed it, though plans had to be changed when the building proved too large for the site. The church has survived two fires and now holds a Grade II listing. Its bells were rung again in 2012 after repairs, and the clock on the tower was the town’s first public timekeeper. Inside, visitors find a west gallery, carved walnut chancel woodwork by Earp of Manchester, and stained glass from the 19th and 20th centuries. The east window, designed by William Pointer, dates from 1956, and mosaic panels from 1914 flank it. The churchyard contains graves of victims from the Yew Tree Colliery disaster in 1858. The Lady Chapel, added in 1920 as a War Memorial Chapel, completes the interior.