Gorton Monastery

Gorton Monastery stands in Gorton, an area of Manchester in North West England. The Church and Friary of St Francis was built between 1866 and 1872 to designs by Edward Welby Pugin, son of the Gothic Revival architect Augustus Pugin. The monastery was founded by Belgian Franciscans invited by Bishop Herbert Vaughan in 1861. After worship ceased in 1989 the building became derelict and was placed on the World Monuments Fund Watch List in 1997. A local campaign led by Elaine Griffiths and her husband secured the site for £1 in 1997. The restored monastery reopened in 2007 as a secular events venue and community space. A £6 million programme returned the church and friary to use, supported by grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund and others. In 2013 volunteers received the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, and in 2021 the Manchester Camerata made the monastery its new home. A new Welcome Wing opened in 2017, funded by gifts from Norman Stoller and the Heritage Lottery Fund. Visitors enter through a narthex of four Gothic arches into a tall nave lined by buttresses and lancet windows. At the north end a polygonal apse holds the high altar beneath a reredos by Peter Paul Pugin. Twelve life-size limestone statues of Franciscan saints stand on 40-foot plinths between the nave bays. The south front shows elaborate Gothic detailing, including flying buttresses, rose windows and a sculpted crucifix beneath a bellcote. To the east a plain three-storey friary building encloses a cloister.