Richmond Independent Chapel, Broughton Road, Salford

Built for the Independent Methodists and opened on Wednesday 22 April 1846 by Dr Raffles, the chapel contained 800 sittings besides free places and accommodation for the children of the Sunday School. The organ was by Bates & Co. of London. The first minister was the Reverend David Everard Ford (1797-1875), previously a minister at Lymington. He was the author of Decapolis (1840), Chorazin  Rudiments of Music (1829), and other religious works. He was also a composer of church music, publishing several books of psalm and hymn tunes.

The use of iron is greatly extending in Manchester, where the principles of its application are well understood, and all the casting establishments are in active operation. The most novel application of this material is in the Independent chapel, erecting in Salford, near the Broughton Bridge, from the designs of Mr Richard Lane. The roof is framed of cast iron principals, curved and meeting at the top in a Gothic arch. Each half is in two pieces firmly bolted together, and the principals are connected by tie rods. The feet of the principals are spread out, and rest on blocks of stone, but are further supported by iron columns, built into the wall, which stand upon stone corbels at the ground level. There are shoes, cast on the principals to receive the purlins. There will be a school room underneath. There are two heights of iron columns, the upper supporting the iron girders for the galleries. These girders are curved in form, so as to approach nearer the section of the steps of the galleries. The roof may be made a very effective feature; and that a similar treatment of ironwork in Gothic architecture is desirable has been pointed out in a former number of this journal. The style adopted for this building appears to be Aperpendicular.” The windows are in two heights and the roof spans the whole width of the building. The principal front will gave a window with crocketed canopy overt the entrance door, and is divided into three compartments by canopied buttresses surmounted by crocketed pinnacles. The style is not well treated, and the mouldings are exceedingly meagre and spiritless, but the constructive effect is worthy of some praise. [Builder 1847 page 547]