BRIEF HISTORY:

Christ Church was completed and consecrated on the 24th December 1859 at a cost of £3000 which was raised by subscription. The architect was W R Corson of St James Square Manchester. The church was built on a corner plot situated at the junction of Bolton Road and Pendlebury Road.

The church was adorned with a communion table, font, pulpit and reading desk. It could accommodate 587 persons.

In 1861 the church tower was added at a cost of £1095 and in 1880 the vicarage was built at a cost of £2028.

It was in January 1868 that the first peel of eight bells was first rung at Christ Church.

The church's Sunday School and Day school played an important part throughout the history of the church. the Day school was opened in 1863 and had two seperate departments; the infants and the girls. The girls school became a mixed school in 1874.

A church should have its east window facing the rising sun on the day of the Saint to which it is dedicated, therefore Christ Church has its east windowfacing the rising sun on Christmas Day as it is dedicated to Christ.

FIRST VICAR: The first vicar of Christ Church was Dr Dewes (1859-1874), who was born in Coventry in 1825. As a curate at St John's, he had been very active in the promotion of the new church.

Thoughtout his ministerial life Dr Dewes found the character of the Lancashire men and women warm and friendly, and he particularly admired the hard-working miners.

In 1874 he moved on to become the first vicar of the next new church in Pendlebury, St Augustine's, where he continued to work for the local people until his death in 1911.

During the years when the area was stricken with epidemics of smallpox and cholera, and again during the cotton famine, he worked unceasingly to help the poor and afflicted. And in June 1885 when a coal pit explosion occured at Clifton Hall colliery, killing 178 miners (mainly from Pendlebury), he was at the forefront of the relief work, caring for the injured, dying and bereaved.

It was also at his suggestion that a nightschool was opened at the Old Toll Bar school, then the Pendlebury Institute, later the Town Hall and finally a library, which he urged should be free to all.

FIRST ENTRIES:
First Baptism: December 25th 1859 Thomas, son of Josiah and Ann Green
First Burial: December 28th 1859 Peter Greenhalgh aged 2 years, of Pendlebury
First Adult Burial: January 16th 1860 Thomas Holden, aged 73 years of Worsley
First Marriage: May 12th 1862 James Seddon to Mary Ann Batty

Information Source, Accreditation and Copyright:
A Brief History of Christ Church and School, Pendlebury by Henry Shaw.
Newspaper Cutting: Salford Advertsier 17th April 1989
Colour Photographs: Janet and Michael Wood