Modern Roman Catholic Churches

We recently visited two Roman Catholic churches in Wigan, St. Cuthbert’s in Pemberton and St. Jude’s in Worsley Mesnes (above). The two churches are completely different in design and atmosphere. Yet they were built within a couple of years of each other.

At its opening in 1965 St. Jude’s was described in the Wigan Observer as being, ‘ultra-modern’ and ‘revolutionary’. With its dramatic Dalle de verre windows (slabs of thick glass set in resin), best seen, in our opinion, at night, its open fan shape design and its striking raw concrete beams it reminds you, in some ways, of the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King in Liverpool. The dramatic mosaic behind the altar depicting The Crucifixion was the work of two German artists, Hans Unger and Eberhard Schulze who together also designed posters for London Transport.

St. Cuthbert’s is completely different. When the new church was planned, the Priest wanted a design with ‘something of the Gothic look about it.’  So, St. Cuthbert’s is more traditional with an altar at the east end, the congregation sitting in straight rows in the rectangular nave. Light and bright, it has beautiful 1960’s church furnishings, especially the metal Communion Rail. The concrete beams which support the roof are here painted white making a contrast with the striking red colour of the roof. The stained glass is abstract, made up of coloured squares and rectangles, and was designed by Joseph Nuttgens who designed many windows for churches in Britain including in St. Peter and St. Paul’s church in Ormskirk.

The Wigan Observer of July 1965 reflects on the postwar building of a series of new Roman Catholic churches in the area. The wonderful St. Teresa’s in Up Holland, it says,  ‘began the spate’ and simple Chapels of Ease opened at Shevington (St. Bernadette) and in Ashton (St. Wilfrid). St. Jude’s had just opened with the Archbishop of Liverpool, Most Revd. Beck, performing the ceremony. The now demolished St. Edward’s in Newtown, said in The Observer to have been influenced by the newly rebuilt Coventry Cathedral, was to be ready just months later. St. Cuthbert’s was to follow the following year.

Firmly here in the decade of the 1960s, we are architecturally a world away from many other Wigan churches. We are visiting and researching these modern buildings, attempting to give equal weight to each one and recording properly their place in the church history of Wigan.