St Paul's Church Former St Paul's Industrial School St James's Church

St Paul's Church.

This Anglican parish church is located off the south side of Huddersfield Rd, about a half mile from the centre of Stalybridge. The foundation stone was laid on the 2 Feb 1838 by Lord Viscount Combermere and it was consecrated in 1839. The church was designed in the Gothic style by the architect Richard Tattersall of Manchester and it was built of hammer-dressed stone with ashlar dressings and a fish-scale slate roof. It was enlarged in 1871 and the architect was William Hayward Brakspear of Manchester. This work consisted of a clerestory and south transept.

Notable features of the church include:

• A fine sanctuary window by William Wailes (1838-1914) of Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1857.
• Stained-glass windows in the north and south transepts by Jones & Willis of Birmingham.
• Around twenty stained-glass windows by Jean Baptiste Capronnier of Brussels, installed c.1850-90.
• A peal of eight bells cast in 1853 by the famous Whitechapel Bell Foundry and recast in 1929.

St Paul's Church is listed Grade II, List Entry No. 1068013 and it is in Tameside's Copley Conservation Area.

The school is situated on the north side of Huddersfield Rd, opposite St Paul’s Church which is about 130-yards away on the south side of the road. Erected in 1840/41, it was initially an educational institution that specialised in providing basic education and vocational training for adult workers and children. During the Cotton Famine of 1861–1865 the school was involved in providing relief and records show that aid was distributed to about 1,700 people using a ticket system. The school eventually transitioned into St Paul’s C of E Primary School.

The architect was Richard Tattersall of Manchester and additions to the building were made later in the 19th century and in the 20th century. The original building is a single-storey range, 7-bays long by 4-bays wide with a later stone-built detached range to the left. It is built of hammer-dressed stone with ashlar dressings and four gable slate roofs, one for each bay of the width. The range to the left has a tower-like entrance feature with a pyramidal roof and pilasters.

Former St Paul's Industrial School.

The school listed Grade II, List Entry No. 1309374, and they are in Tameside's Copley Conservation Area.

St James's Church.

This Anglican parish church is located in Millbrook, off the south east side of Huddersfield Rd, and it also serves the adjoining Carrbook district of Stalybridge to the north east. The church was designed by the architects, G and J Shaw (George and John Radcliffe) of Saddleworth and it was erected in 1861-63. It is built of rock-faced stone with ashlar dressings and a slate roof. The most noticeable architectural feature is the tower on the west side. This has a castellated corner stair turret and a prominent broach spire. In architecture, a broach spire signifies the entire construction, where an octagonal spire rises directly from a square tower without the use of corner pinnacles or buttresses. A ‘broach’ is a sloping triangular, or half-pyramidal portion of masonry used to accomplish a smooth transition from a square tower to an octagonal, tapering spire. Four broaches are required, one in each corner of a square tower, and their purpose is to fill the corners where a square tower joins an octagonal spire. The church interior has a carved timber reredos and pulpit.

St James’s Church is listed Grade II, List Entry No. 1162989.