Fury as landmark church bulldozed

HERITAGE GROUPS CONDEMN COUNCIL DECISION

- NEAL KEELING

IT HAD a rich musical history. A famous composer was a choirboy there and some of its congregation sang in an episode of Coronation Street in the 1960s.

But Oldham council's demolition of the Victorian St John's Church, in Werneth, has hit a sour note with heritage groups. Town hall bosses opted for tearing down the building, founded in 1844 and consecrated in October 1845, as they fear it could attract vandals and 'blight' the area.

But the council's reasoning has been condemned as a 'dangerous precedent' and a 'wasteful' act by the National Churches Trust and Victorian Society respectively.

An aerial picture taken in 1947 shows how the church was at the centre of a community, then dominated by Werneth Mill and hundreds of terrace homes. The mill and the homes have gone, though and, after surviving longest, the church has too.