The Church of St Michael and All Angels, Howe Bridge in the County of -- Lancashire --

Howe Bridge St Michael and All Angels

	Howe Bridge St Michael and All Angels. Photo by Peter Wood, 22 Dec 2003

	Howe Bridge St Michael and All Angels sign

History

As with Hindsford St Anne, the present church of Howe Bridge St Michael and All Angels was built in response to late Victorian urbanisation. Howe Bridge was originally a small settlement on the road from Atherton to Leigh, but became something of a coal company town once deep mining commenced at the nearby Howe Bridge Colliery, and Gibfield Colliery not far to the north. In 1869 a school and mission dedicated to St Michael and All Angels was opened at Howe Bridge in Atherton parish, and served till a new St Michael’s church was built and consecrated on 08 February 1877. In August 1878 Howe Bridge became an ecclesiastic parish separate from Atherton, and remained so for some 124 years. On 26 June 2002, an order was made at the Privy Council that united the benefice of St Michael and All Angels, Howe Bridge with Atherton & Hindsford, and established a new Team Ministry for the area, in the Diocese of Manchester.

The first baptism at Howe Bridge was on 17 Aug 1873 in the licensed room at the mission. The first marriage was on 19 Aug 1878 at the new parish church of Howe Bridge. There were no burials at St Michael’s.

Resources for Howe Bridge St Michael and All Angels

Wigan History Shop and Leigh Library hold the following records:-

Baptisms: 1873-1993
Marriages: 1878-1995
Banns: 1896-1994
Confirmations: 1879-1918

Howe Bridge Village

In the early 1870s the coal owners John Fletcher & Others (Fletcher, Burrows & Co. from 1874) employed a Dutch architect to design a ‘model’ village at Howe Bridge for the workers in their Atherton Collieries. Rows of terraced houses, a communal bath house, school, shops, and a village club were built either side of Leigh Road, just north of Chowbent (later Howe Bridge) Station on the L&NWR Co’s Tyldesley-Wigan line. The collieries and railway have gone, but the village remains and is the most significant reminder of Atherton’s coal mining era.

	Map of Howe Bridge in 1908 from OS Sheet 94.15 Atherton SW (Godfrey Edition). Leigh Road crosses from NE to SW, and the railway, on its high embankment, from E to W. Howe Bridge ‘model’ village is the grid of streets and buildings to the north of Howe Bridge Station. The road joining Leigh Road from the west, to the north of the Railway Hotel, is Lovers Lane. Map is about 0.56km across.

	The influence of the Dutch architect is seen in ‘The Promenade’ along Leigh Road. The large building was a communal bath-house for miners and their families, now a private residence. The trees in the background are growing on the embankment of the old railway. Photo by Peter Wood, May 2005

	Houses at the south end of Lilford Street, where many of the Atherton Collieries men and their families lived. The trees in the background are growing on the embankment of the old railway. Photo by Peter Wood, May 2005

	Terraced colliers’ cottages on Bowling Green Row. There are 15 individual homes in view. In front of the houses used to be the crown bowling green of the Village Club, now school playing fields. ‘Crown’ greens had a hump in the centre, and were specific to the north of England. Photo by Peter Wood, May 2005

	Atherton Collieries Village Club on Leigh Road. That sign is one of only 3 obvious reminders that Atherton was once an important coal mining town. Photo by Peter Wood, May 2005