Hale Congregational Church Sunday School Annex, Astley Road, Hale

In 1909 an extensions committee was formed and immediately set about building an annex to the School-Church to be called the New Schools, putting the building of a new church in abeyance. The school annex opened in April 1911

 As the local paper reported: "The work for the present is, therefore, limited to the building of an annexe to the school chapel which will contain three departments, each with accommodation for from eighty to one hundred children. The primary department on the ground floor will be used by the very youngest children. Others whose years are more will be taught in the junior department. while still older children will be housed in the intermediate department. Each school has its own means of access with separate class rooms, and the work of each will be entirely independent. No structural change would be made in the school chapel, but the additions to be made will make it available for large meetings and for the purposes of the senior Sunday school and institute and various forms of social work which may be determined upon in the future."

Mr. Arthur Haworth, MP laid the foundation-stone of new Sunday school buildings at the Ashley Road Congregational Church, Hale, on Saturday afternoon. The schools are to be an annexe of the building which hitherto has served the double purpose of school and chapel. The Congregationalists of Hale established themselves at Ashley Road in 1899. The population of the district was then only 3,000. To-day it is 9,000, and it continues to increase steadily. Growth of population has meant a growth of the church's activities. and a scheme is already. afoot for the building of a spacious church capable of accommodating a large congregation. For the present, however, only a portion of the scheme—that involving the erection of a Sunday school—has been taken in hand. The school is to be divided into three departments, each to receive from 80 to 100 children. [Manchester Guardian 17 October 1910 page 9]

 A new Sunday school connected with the Ashley Road Congregational Church, Hale was opened on Friday by Mrs W A Arnold.  The Rev. W. Melville Harris, secretary of the young People's Department of the Congregational Union, said that the building, which has been designed by Messrs. France and Laycock, was the most perfect and beautiful he had seen. Mr. W. A. Arnold and his son, Mr. Alfred Arnold, have given £300 for the furnishing of the school, and Mr. George Cadbury has sent £25 for the church and Sunday school extension scheme. [Manchester Guardian 1 May 1911 page 9]