Save Sacred Heart

A group of local people, Catholics and non Catholics who are concerned about the future of the Church buildings have got together under the name S.O.L. (Save Our Landmark). The aim of this group is to work towards keeping the Church as a working Church which caters for the Catholic community rather than see it closed and maintained at a basic level, preserving the shell only. Non Catholics are also involved as they see the best way to preserve the Church is to see that it is used. Along with St. Annes Church of England which is under threat of demolition, Sacred Heart stands out as the only building of note in the ancient village of Hindsford.

S.O.L. is seeking charitable status and is currently looking at ways of utilizing the beautiful attached to the Church so that it may generate the income to maintain the Church building.

A report on the structure of the Church and presbytery was commissioned in 1999 and has recently been updated. Costs over the next 20 years or so are estimated to be around £359,000.00 which includes costs for cyclical decoration, repairing the drive and rebuilding boundary walls.

If you can help in any way or merely want to give us support please write to S.O.L. c/o The Presbytery. Sacred Heart Church, Tyldesley Road, Hindsford, Atherton, Lancashire. You can of course reply on this websites guest book.

Sacred Heart Church, Hindsford is under threat. Tyldesley Historical Society supports those trying to save this historic and beautiful building built in 1869.

History of Sacred Heart

Sacred Heart Catholic Church Hindsford, situated between Atherton and Tyldesley is a building which was recently granted in May 2001 listed status. It was judged to be a building of special architectural or historic interest.

Quite near to the present Church was once the moated mansion of the Atherton family called The Lodge which was their home before the building of Atherton Hall in 1722. It was in this manor house in 1360 that the Bishop of Litchfield gave license for an oratory to be set up. William Atherton was the petitioner: the mother church of the old parish was too distance and caused hardship in bad winters to his tenants and for nearly 200 years the Mass and the high offices of the church were celebrated in this domestic chapel.

Long after the chantry was suppressed its name has still lived on as part of the local landscape, in a farm house and later in Chanters Colliery which closed down some years ago.

The centre of an individual and once industrialized part of the old township of Atherton, in the Middle Ages Hindsford was the more important locality and the most populous. The decay of the ancient Lodge and the move nearer to Leigh when Atherton Hall was erected in 1722 led to the decline of the importance of Hindsford. There had always been some industry particularly nail making but with the coming of the Industrial Revolution water was needed for steam power and when James Burton settled at Hindsford House he built his great Mills next to the brook in both the townships of Hindsford and Tyldesley Hindsford once again grew in importance.

Not far away were the Mills of Thomas Kearsley, later to be absorbed by Caleb Wright, and to work these huge concerns there was the coal pits at Chanters. These developments brought in many workers, many from Ireland. Once a family had settled others of the same kin followed. Among these was John Holland a partner in the Yew Tree Colliery, Tyldesley. He began to think about erecting a chapel to cater for the increasing number of Catholics. Lord Lilford donated the land and in 1869 at a cost of £2,500 Sacred Heart Church was built along with a presbytery and school with Holland himself provided the bricks, timber and all the carting for the new buildings. This special church has been a feature of the local landscape ever since.