Lidgett Park Methodist Church Lidgett Place Leeds

The first part of the church, the Schools, Hall and class rooms were designed in 1903 and opened in 1906. They were the work of W. H. Beevers, who also designed the nearby St Andrew’s United Reformed Church and many of the houses in the surrounding roads.

The church was opened on 29 May 1926, the architect being Arthur Brocklehurst & Co of Manchester. It is built of Guiseley stone in a free late Perpendicular style. Tracery is in a vestigial stylised Perpendicular. The main entrance is at the west end but this has been superseded by one built in the 1970s as part of a church hall complex. There is a 75 feet high tower. A tall moulded chancel arch opens onto an apsidal sanctuary with a central three-light window and a pair of two-light windows. There are north and south transepts and broad nave seating 450 with a glazed narthex at the west end. There is vertical boarded oak wainscoating in the nave and oak panelling in the chancel together with good quality pews, pulpit and an octagonal font. The most notable features of the interior are the roof and the stained glass. The roof is hammer-beam with massive arched braces resting on moulded stone corbels. The hammer-beams themselves have applied timber mouldings running along the top of each face. A collar beam has queen struts rising to a second collar beam which supports boarding closing the vee of the steeply pitched roof. At the top of each strut are panels with cusped cut-outs. The stained glass at the east end is by W. F. Clokey & Co Ltd Studios, Belfast and they are also likely to be responsible for the window in the south side of the nave. All are richly coloured in the Arts and Crafts manner with densely treated subjects. That on the left side of the apse depicts St Michael and is in memoriam Major Joseph Stephenson, d.1941, that on the right side, St George in memoriam Captain William Raby, d. 1943.Reordering took place in 2001 with the rostrum being brought forward, the pulpit moved forward with it and choir stalls in the chancel taken out. Building Plans, Leeds Archive

CONTRACTORS desirous of TENDERING for the whole the work required in the ERECTION of the NEW WESLEY CHURCH. LIDGETT PARK. LEEDS, are invited to send in application to the Architects. Messrs A. BROCKLEHURST and Company, Palatine Bank Buildings, 10. Norfolk Street. Manchester, when the Bills of Quantities and Specification will be forwarded [Yorkshire Post 22 November 1920 page 1

Reference    John Minnis and Trevor Mitchell, 2007, Religion and Place in Leeds,  page 29-30
Reference    Yorkshire Post 22 November 1920 page 1 - contracts