Long Street Methodist Church & Schools are a striking complex of connected buildings arranged around a courtyard garden – the finest Arts and Crafts Methodist Church anywhere.
The church is open for worship on Sundays and other days CLICK HERE for details.
Guided tours for groups are also available, CLICK HERE for details. Tours also include the adjacent Edgar Wood Centre in the school buildings.
Edgar Wood’s church has a simple, strong and memorable appearance but with delicate surfaces where colour and texture prevail. Seen close up from the street, the church soars dramatically. It is built of subtly textured brickwork and almost identically coloured red Runcorn sandstone which runs organically up the building like no other. The organic looking tracery of the two large windows at each end of the church is un-mistakedly Art Nouveau and the one facing the road grows upwards to form a finial with a plant-like top. While recognisably a church, the design was the most the modern and forward-looking in England when built in 1899.
The internal styling is plain, simple and modern with a very controlled visual scene with the same stripy red sandstone and subtle header bond brickwork found outside. It is a very peaceful space, large but not overpowering. All the windows have plain leaded glass, so pure white light illuminates the church. However, little coloured Arts & Crafts leaded windows in the doors glow when the light catches them. The chancel is marked by a line of Art Nouveau fittings – a pulpit, lectern and font all connected by a matching stone chancel wall. Beyond this, the chancel is intimate with Art Nouveau pews, chairs and kneelers.
The open roof space is designed with alternating hammer beam and scissor trusses with the underside of the trusses catching the light from the windows. With a brilliant touch, Wood fixed small square timber caps to alternating trusses thereby giving the roof a rhythm drawing the eye along the nave and chancel to the windows at each end.
The church is a true expression of the Arts & Crafts – nothing is showy or pretentious and everything is harmonious save for the occasional modern alteration.
