New housing developments bring a new era for city’s Victorian church
A plea went out today as religious leaders said a new era was dawning for an inner city church that was built as a slum mission.
Houses and flats are going up close to St Saviour’s Church, Ellerby Road, Richmond Hill, east Leeds, bringing more people to the parish.
So church elders are anxious that restoration of the building – once described as the “most important Victorian church in Leeds” – is done quickly.

The first phase which involves restoration of the chapel and vestry roofs, some work on the church tower, re-laying the interior floor and re-decorating the church, will cost around £193,000. Then repairs to the stained glass – regarded as some of the best 19th century glass in Europe – will be needed at a cost of at least £100,000.
Christopher Tyne, the church’s historian and vice-chairman of the parochial church council, said the church would have to dig into its reserves and would welcome any financial help.
He said: “There are two housing developments under way and we expect more in the next five years. So it looks as if the parish will grow. Slum clearance in the area started about 1937, was stopped by the war, and was then completed in the 1970s.”
St Saviour’s was funded by Dr Edward Bouverie Pusey, an Oxford professor, who was invited by his friend Dr Walter Hook, Vicar of Leeds 1837-1859,
to build a church for the working class of Leeds.

“In a way the church was built as a memorial to Pusey’s wife and daughter who both died young,” said Mr Tyne. “It was important for being a pioneer church – it was the first to be planted as a slum mission.
“Pusey paid for everything and that amounted to £16,000 in 1845. He asked that it should be built in the worst parish in the city. He would never have admitted it but he was a little bit of a Christian socialist.
Sunday, September 16 will be the 125th anniversary of the death of Dr Pusey and St Saviour’s has arranged a special service at 3pm that day.

source : www.leedstoday.net