Didsbury / Dodesbury / Dydesbiri / Dydesbyre

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view of church exterior - southeast view

Copyright Statement: Image copyright © Rept0n1x, 2013

Image Source: digital photograph taken 18 June 2013 by Rept0n1x [whttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_James'_Church,_Didsbury_(10).JPG] [accessed 22 July 2014]

Copyright Instructions: CC-BY-SA-3.0

INFORMATION

FontID: 15015DID
Church/Chapel: Parochial Chapel of St. James
Church Patron Saints: St. James
Church Location: Stenner Lane, Didsbury, Greater Manchester, M20 2RQ
Country Name: England
Location: Greater Manchester, North West
Directions to Site: Located 5 km W of Stockport, near Manchester, and now a suburb of it
Ecclesiastic Region: Diocese of Manchester
Historical Region: Hundred of Salford -- formerly Lancashire
Font Location in Church: [disappeared?]
Century and Period: 14th century, Decorated
Credit and Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Janice Tostevin for the update on the font
Church Notes: original chapel may have been a 13thC oratory; enlarged and re-built in the 17th and 19thC; reovated 2012
No idividual entry found for Didsbury in the Domesday survey. Booker (1857) notes: "Didsbury is the most ancient of all the chapels in the parish of Manchester, having been founded, as it is supposed, about the year 1235 […] in 1352 it became a parochial chapel […] In 1620 Didsbury Chapel was entirely rebuilt of stone, a tower being now probably first added." Booker (ibid.) further informs that on 31 July 1855 a faculty was granted to the then rector of Didsbury parochial chapel and the two churchwardens, among other, "to remove the font from under the tower to the south-west corner of the body of the church, near the entrance porch." It appears that the enterprising trio not only removed the font, but also got rid of it and replaced it with a Victorian one. The Victoria County History (Lancaster, vol. 4, 1911) shows an interior plan in which a font appears at the west end of the north aisle; the VCH further notes: "The present font, which stands at the west end of the north aisle, dates from 1881, but an older plaster font is preserved at the rectory." An added footnote notes on this plaster font: "It has been several times taken to the church of late years to be used for adult baptisms, and being by tradition the font in which Barlow was baptized, is still an object of reverence to Roman Catholics." [NB: it is not clear when this plaster font dates from; Edward Ambrose Barlow, priest and martyr, was baptised at Didsbury Chapel in 1585; whether or not the belief that he was baptised in this plaster font is not clear. The removed font may have been the one dating from the 17th-century re-building of this church instead. Janice Tostevin visited the church in June-July 2009 and reported the Victorian font to BSI (e-mail of 21 July 2009); we have no information on the whereabouts of the earlier font(s)]. The entry for this church in Historic England [Listing NGR: SJ8469190378] notes: "Parish church. Rebuilt in early C17, further rebuilt and enlarged at various dates in mid to later C19: tower of 1620, nave 1855, chancel 1871, east half of south aisle 1895"; no font mentioned in the listing.

COORDINATES

Church Latitude & Longitude Decimal: 53.41, -2.2318
Church Latitude & Longitude DMS: 53° 24′ 36″ N, 13° 13′ 54.48″ W
UTM: 30U 551064 5918156

REFERENCES

Victoria County History [online], University of London, 1993-. Accessed: 2009-07-22 00:00:00. URL: https://www.british-history.ac.uk.
Booker, John, A History of the ancient chapels of Didsbury and Chorlton, in Manchester Parish, […], [Manchester?]: Printed for the Chetham Society, 1857