St Margaret

The church was built in 1848-9 to designs by James Park Harrison who designed a number of churches between the early 1840s and the early 1860s. His early churches were in southern England and Whalley Range appears to be the first of a later group in Lancashire, Cheshire and Shropshire. The steeple is a prominent feature of the area.

The laying of the foundation stone was the first act of Bishop James Prince Lee, the first Bishop of Manchester, and took place on 11 February 1848, after his enthronement that morning. The site had been given by Samuel Brooks, a banker, who in 1836 had bought the surrounding area for development from swampy moorland known as Jackson’s Moss into a salubrious neighbourhood named after his birthplace of Whalley. Brooks also gave £1000 towards the cost of building the church. The cost was £6000 and the builders were Locker and Newsham. The completed church was consecrated on 28 April 1849. The church was first restored in 1892 and the south chancel was added in 1920 as a War Memorial. It cost £2000.

The pulpit is of stone, octagonal, with a plain panel in each face carved with a simple cross; it is a Second World War Memorial. The lectern is an eagle of unusual size set in a big turned pedestal, all of oak, carved by G.A. Vitty of Manchester. The font is of stone, octagonal, set in four quatrefoil shafts; the bowl has plain carved panels. The nave seating is of oak benches with oddly shaped backs with moulded rails and organic leaves on the front edge of the ends. The parclose screen to the Memorial Chapel is in glazed oak, c 1920.