St Cross Church, Middleton
History
The parish of St Cross was taken out of the extensive parish of Middleton after the Middleton council housing estate was built in the 1920s and the population in the area increased dramatically. St Mary's Church acquired a site on which to build a mission church and a temporary wooden building was erected in 1925 with funds from the Leeds Church Extension Society. A permanent church was built in 1933 with funding from the diocese. St Cross was created a separate parish in July 1935.
A complete set of coins for 1933, including a 1933 penny, one of only seven known examples, was buried when the church's foundation stone was laid. The coins were found in 1970 to have been stolen.
Structure
The church was designed in the Early Christian style by F.L.Charlton for the Church Forward Movement. It has a concrete frame and is clad in brick.
Exterior
The church has five bays with narrow single light rounded windows to the nave and a clerestory of narrow closely spaced rounded arched windows. The church has a north east Italianate campanile-style bell tower with a single bell. The tower is 60 feet high.
Interior
The nave is spanned by broad Gothic arches and there are five bay arcades with rounded arches. The walls are plastered. The altar, credence table and lectern were designed by Charlton and made by Robert Thompson of Kilburn who also made the aisle screens. The pulpit is from St John at Adel and a 19th-century font came from Ainderby Steeple. A crucifix made in Oberammergau came from Christ Church in Hunslet.
The interior was altered in 1982 when the rear two bays were partitioned to form a parish room and kitchen.
References
Notes
- ^ The Diocese of Ripon and Leeds, anglican.org, retrieved 23 June 2010
- ^ The Deanery of Armley, Ripon and Leeds Bells, retrieved 23 June 2010
- ^ Illing 1971, p. 6
- ^ 1933 penny, Royal Mint Museum, retrieved 8 June 2024
- ^ Leach & Pevsner 2009, p. 561
- ^ Religion and Place in Leeds A survey and Gazetteer of Places of Worship 1900-2005 (PDF), English Heritage, p. 17, archived from the original (PDF) on 23 March 2012, retrieved 19 October 2011
Bibliography
- Illing, Rev. E. J. (1971), A History of the Parish of Middleton and its Parish Church, Middleton Parish Church
- Leach, Peter; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2009), The Buildings of England: Yorkshire West Riding, Leeds, Bradford and the North, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-12665-5
