St Anne's Church, Hindsford

St Anne’s Church stands in Hindsford, a district of Atherton in Greater Manchester. It is a former Anglican parish church built on Tyldesley Road and now recorded on the National Heritage List as a Grade II listed building. The church replaced an earlier mission chapel on Swan Island, opened in 1873. In 1884 Hindsford became a separate parish and the foundation stone for the new church was laid in 1889. Designed by the Lancaster architects Austin and Paley, the building was completed in 1901 at a cost of £9,000 and seated 450 people. The church was constructed from sandstone with Westmorland slate roofs in the Gothic Revival style. Its plan includes a four-bay nave, north and south aisles, a south porch, a south transept and a two-bay chancel. A tower rises on a chamfered plinth with diagonal buttresses, one of which supports an octagonal stair turret. The louvred bell openings are square-headed, the parapet is embattled and the roof is topped by a pyramidal cap with a weathervane. The windows display Decorated tracery throughout. After becoming redundant in 1999, the church was converted into flats between 2003 and 2004. The building’s Gothic Revival features remain clearly visible, including the buttresses, stair turret and bell openings. The tower’s embattled parapet and pyramidal roof still dominate the skyline of Hindsford. Inside, the original layout of nave, aisles and chancel can still be traced. The church’s sandstone walls and slate roofs preserve the craftsmanship of its architects and builders.