After 159 years of worship the church which has just ten in the congregation is up for sale

It is a heaven sent opportunity for a sensitive developer. Built in a Gothic Revival style and designed by the architect who created Manchester Town Hall it is passed by thousands of drivers every day.

The United Reformed Church, Besses o' th' Barn, is a Grade II listed building which is at the point where Bury New Road and Bury Old Road meet at Whitefield. The foundation stone was laid in 1864.

Construction, which cost £4,500 was completed in 1865 and it opened originally as Besses Congregational Church before changing its name when congregationalists and the Presbyterian Church of England merged in the 1970s.

When opened it had a chapel big enough to accomodate more than 800 plus a vestry and a schoolroom. But as the congregation has dwindled over the decades the building, designed by Alfred Waterhouse, has now like many churches across the country gone up for sale. It has an asking price of £750,000.

Church elder, Joan Ashworth, who has attended the church since 1960, said: "There are only ten of us left and it is a very large building. We will continue with one service each week - on Sunday at quarter to eleven - until the end of June. Before Covid we had a congregation of 30 to 40, but we lost many members during the pandemic.

"I feel sad that it has come to this but those of us left will just scatter. The Church is owned by the North West Synod of the United Reformed Church. We did have groups attached to the church - but post Covid the Guides and Rainbows did not return, only the Brownies, and they are relocating to Elms Methodist Church.

"The church consists of the chapel, a large hall, community rooms, and a kitchen. It is very large, people are surprised by its size when they come in."

The summer will see the end of a church which began when a senior student at Lancashire Independent College in Whalley Range requested that other students meet him in a classroom as he wished to raise an important matter.

The meeting was called by Mr, later Rev William Nicholls, who told the group that a friend of his, Mr Jonathan Lees, of Smedley Lane, Manchester, had said Besses o' th' Barn was a promising place for mission work.

In his 1962 book "Pilkington Park: An Account of Whitefield and Besses o' th' Ban and their parish", Thomas Holt, wrote: "The idea was at once taken up by six students," two of them secured an old cottage to hold services, and "on the first Sunday morning the attendance was five, the afternoon 67, and the evening 110." An adjoining cottage had to be used to cope with the numbers turning up.

In the same year a Bi-centenary Fund was set up by Congregationalists across the country and £200,000 was raised. Of this £1000 was given to the Besses o' th' Barn "pioneers" to build a new church. The first sod was turned over by one of the Sunday School teacher, Miss Entwhistle and in 1864 the foundation stone was laid by Benjamin Whitworth JP.

According to James Holt the land had been secured from Lord Derby by Mr H Harrison of Stand and the church was opened for worship on November 16th 1865. The following year extra classrooms were added to the school building at a cost of £800.

Holt wrote: "It can truthfully be said that the church has played a great part in the growth and development of Besses o' th' Barn, but it has needed long and sustained efforts in the different activities carried on, and the many bazaars and sales of work, concerts, etc during a long number of years to do this.

"Many families have spent a lifetime in working for this church, in some cases right from the opening day."

According the the Manchester Guardian of June 27th 1864, the church initially known as the Bicentenary Memorial Chapel, "was to be erected by Mr Mark Foggett, of Cheetham, from the designs of Mr Waterhouse, the architect."

The report added: "The general style of the buildings will be Gothic and they will be of brick with stone facings. There will be three galleries, and behind the pulpit will be an organ chamber, librarian’s rooms, and vestry. Over these rooms will be an infants’ school which will be 78 feet by 33 feet, and will afford accommodation for between 500 and 600 children, and the chapel will accommodate 823 people."

The church is being marketed by Lamb and Swift Commercial Property, of Bolton. They say the it will be sold by way of informal tender. They say: "The property itself comprises a substantial detached church premises and associated buildings, construction of which was completed in 1865. This Grade II Listed building was first listed by English Heritage in 1985. The short entry in the Register describes the building as being constructed in a Gothic revival style.

"The building is described as a low spreading complex, conspicuously sited at the fork between Bury New Road and Bury Old Road. Incorporating decorative red brick band detailing and with window heads and tympana in other colours, there are short transepts with similar gables. Furthermore, to the east end of the building there are steep slate covered gables with one to the north and two to the south."

Internally, the property as well as the chapel there are various other rooms including a vestry, disabled WC and separate male and female WC's, a range of storerooms, a substantial hall with associated stage and back of stage, a large kitchen, further hall, together with a range of first floor rooms and classrooms, previously used, in part, by a dance school.

In 2005 the church won a £136,000 restoration grant from English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund to be used towards the cost of roof repairs.