Town's most important historic building restored

Photograph of St Wilfrid's Church in Standish. The photograph is taken from the road outside the church yard.

St Wilfrid's Church in Standish is the only Grade I-listed building in Wigan.

Richard Stead
BBC News, Manchester

Work has almost been completed on an restoration of Wigan's only Grade I-listed building.

St Wilfrid's Church in Standish, which has been a landmark in the borough for more than 160 years, is undergoing repairs to the spire.

The Victorian-era masonry had suffered cracking due to rust from the ironwork inside the structure, and an internal timber frame had been damaged by water.

The weather vane and the church clock have also been restored and reinstalled.

Repairs to the church spire began in February and the restoration is expected to finish in the autumn.

Photograph of the architect Becky Gilbert-Rule. She is pictured in the church yard of St Wilfrid's in Standish.

Becky Gilbert-Rule has worked on the restoration

Becky Gilbert-Rule, from Patrick Wilson Architects, said: "These projects do not come up every day.

"We knew that we had some major problems with the condition of the stonework, but we didn't know quite how bad it was until we got up there."

Photograph of the weather vane from St Wilfrid's Church in Standish. Part of it is lying on a table and another part is resting on the parquet floor.

The weather vane was taken down from the church spire and has been restored

The nave of St Wilfrid's dates from 1584 and the spire was completed in 1859, replacing a a structure which was blown down in a storm.

The restoration of the 130ft (39m) spire has cost in excess of £500,000, and around half of that total has been raised by local people.

The National Churches Trust donated £55,000 to complete the work, while £216,000 came from a National Lottery heritage grant.

Photograph of Andrew Holliday in the nave of St Wilfrid's Church in Standish, with stained glass windows in the background.

Rev Andrew Holliday said the church was the "heartbeat of the community"

Rev Andrew Holliday, the rector, told BBC Radio Manchester that the work was "not just about preserving something set in history".

"This place is used every single day and is a living heartbeat of this community," he said.

Photograph of James Dalton from Heritage Conservation Restoration Ltd. He is pictured in the church yard of St Wilfrid's in Standish. He is wearing a blue hard hat and yellow-green high visibility jacket.

James Dalton's firm Heritage Conservation Restoration Ltd has been working on the project

James Dalton, a director of Heritage Conservation Restoration Ltd, said: "What lets down buildings like this is the iron fixings which have started to rust away.

"We've had to put the scaffolding up, dismantle the cracked stonework, introduce new stainless steel fixings and then rebuild it."

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