That much loved church in Eccles ..... with heaps of history

 Now for lots of people St Mary's Church, is a familiar and much loved place of worship, and for many more just a reminder of our past.

According to one source, "St Mary's Church, was in medieval times, the centre of a large ecclesiastical parish containing Pendleton, Pendlebury, Clifton, Swinton, Worsley and Barton-upon-Irwell. 

To the west the parish covered a portion of Chat Moss to the River Glaze and was bounded by the River Irwell to its north and east. 

The church is of ancient origin and was the only church in the parish for several hundred years. A church has occupied its site since Norman times and probably before then. 

The church contains few remains of its earliest incarnation but the tower base and west end of the north aisle are from the 13th century. The 14th century structure was enlarged in the 15th century and the chancel was reconstructed in the 16th century and rebuilt in 1862 by J P Holden".*

But I only discovered Salford and indeed Eccles in 1970, shortly after I moved to Manchester, and the church still has a hold on me.

Not least because over 180 years ago it was a place well known to some of our family who migrated from Pendleton to Canada in the late 1840s.

But that as they say is another story.

So I make no apologies for posting the pictures.

Location; Eccles

Picture;St Mary's Church, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson

*Church of St Mary the Virgin, Eccles, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_St_Mary_the_Virgin,_Eccles