Places of worship in Burnley
In the late 19th century a Jewish synagogue was established, and in recent times evangelical and free churches have appeared, as well as a large purpose-built mosque.
[8] An upper part was added to the tower in 1803[8] and interior restoration work was undertaken in 1854 by Miles Thompson who built the nave arcades and clerestory.
[8] St Andrew's Church on Colne Road was built in 1866–67 to a design by J. Medland Taylor, and was restored in 1898 by the Lancaster architects Austin and Paley.
[16] The church has an open policy for baptism and marriage, under Anglican guidelines, and anyone who is a full member of any denomination may make their communion there.
The stone-built church has a decorative brick interior and a wooden beamed ceiling without any internal columns, giving an unrestricted view of the High Altar.
There is also a table tennis group and St Cuthbert’s Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society meet weekly from June until November.
[45] Holy Trinity Church, Accrington Road, Habergham Eaves (The Mitre), was founded in 1835 on land given by Robert Townley Parker.
[50] The chapel at Townley Hall, was founded before 1706 and closed in 1872, was the chief centre of Roman Catholic worship in Burnley until modern times.
A seventeenth-century description of the hiding places at Towneley was published for the first time in 1923 when Lord Abingdon had forwarded it to the Mayor of Burnley.
Following the defeat of the Catholics in the Jacobite rising of 1745, Catholicism in Burnley saw a slow decline, and by 1774 Bishop Walton confirmed that there were only 39 to receive the sacrament.
The chief local benefactors of the chapel were Peregrine Towneley (£1,000), John Witham (£200), Edward Lovat (£100) and Harry Eastwood (£50).
[53] Fr Peter Hopkinson, formerly Rural Dean, is the parish priest at St Mary’s and is based at the Presbytery on Todmorden Road.
A chapel of ease of St Thomas had been established in 1876, and in 1929 Monsignor Tynan bought a house in Manchester Road to found a new parish to replace it.
From September 1897, Holy Mass was celebrated at the unfurnished "The Cottage House”, the parish being called St Vincent's at that time.
Fr Cahill took as priest over in 1904, but the parish, deemed to be too poor, was closed and made a chapel of ease to St Mary Magdalene's, Gannow.
A new chalice was presented to the church by the crew of No 1 Gun, Howitzer Brigade, comrades of Joseph Stanley who had been killed in action in France in 1918.
Bishop Vaughan laid the foundation stone for a two-storey school-chapel in 1893, and at the end of that year the chapel was opened by Archbishop Scarisbrick.
He travelled from where he was living in Hebden Bridge and preached, first in Worsthorne, and then in a house in Burnley Market Place, at that time situated at the bottom of what is now Manchester Road.
His visits became regular, but he described the town as a “wretched place” with “no religion in or near it that we know of.” Taylor collected money from the Assembly of the General Baptists, held in London, for the building of a Burnley church, possibly the Ebenezer Chapel.
The event has been described by Dr Underwood, historian of the Baptist Movement in England, as follows: "In 1891, the Association of the New Connexion met at Burnley ... and it was resolved by an overwhelming majority to accept the invitation offered.
The two Missionary Societies and Building Funds were also amalgamated.." The union of the churches was a complete success, and the meeting can be regarded as one of the most important religious events to have taken place in Burnley.
With the building vacant, however, Lancashire County Council missed the opportunity to extend the neighbouring Burnley Library into the premises.
In 2010, however, the building was saved by the local Primary Health Care Trust, with the intended use of providing much-needed dental services for the town.
[79] In 1834 the church was known as the “'Protestant Wesleyan Methodists” and was started by former members of Keighley Green Chapel who held meetings at Lanebridge and at Salford Mill.
A symbol of the former use of this site as a place of worship to God and the enduring craftsmanship of time past.”[62] Stoneyholme Chapel, on Hubie Street, founded in 1880, is now converted to a plumbing warehouse.
The church finally closed completely in 1971 when the congregation joined the Mount Pisgah Chapel at Myrtle Bank, Cog Lane.
The congregation stayed at this location until 2005, when they purchased Gannow Baths on Sycamore Avenue, a closed down, government owned public leisure centre and surrounding fields.
Gannow Baths was renovated to serve as a temporary place of worship for the congregation whilst work began to build a purpose built, 500 seater auditorium on the adjoining fields of their current venue.
[147] The premises was for as time a Christian Science Reading Room, but is now “Burnley Concert Artists” Working Men’s Club.
The £1.5M privately funded Jamia Masjid Ghausia Mosque on Abel Street in Daneshouse, was the culmination of ten years of fundraising in the local and wider Muslim communities.
