Shawclough & Healey March 2020

From The Archives
ST EDMUNDS CHURCH, FALINGE
Street names have been seen as
memorials to eminent people in
towns and cities, no more so in
Rochdale perhaps than those
named after the Royds family.
14th century records of the family suggest
that the Royds were landowners near
Halifax before moving to Rochdale where
they set up as farmers and wool-staplers,
a family important enough subsequently
to be given the right to bear arms. By the
mid-18th century James Royds had the
wealth to purchase land and advance
businesses in Rochdale and by 1827 at
the age of 16 Albert Hudson Royds went
into banking, setting up with his brother
William Edward The Rochdale Bank, the
profits from which built many fine houses
in the town as well as enabling further
family investment in roads, waterways and
railways. At the same time Albert and other
family members pursued civic and political
careers. Though some of the family
moved south to Worcestershire to further
their wealth accumulation as gentleman
farmers, Rochdale remained close to their
hearts, setting up Mount Falinge as their
main home (now a façade in Falinge Park)
which had been built by James Royds with
Albert moving back to it in 1878.
The family diaries and letters bear witness
not only to the Royds’ determined business
character but also to their deeply rooted
Christian faith so Albert Hudson Royds
building a church in the town dedicated
to the memory of his parents would
have come as no surprise. St Edmunds
however, was no ordinary church. The
average cost of building a church in 1873
would have been about £5000 but Royds
spent between £20,000 and £30,000 on St
Edmunds. The reasons why are concerned
with the devout Christianity of the family
but also their connection to Freemasonry,
Albert Royds eventually rising to the status
of Provincial Grand Master and Grand
Superintendent in the Royal Arch.
Placed at the crossing of four streets and
visible from the family home at Mount
Falinge the church stands on a diamondshaped
plinth with building dimensions
proportional to those believed to be those
of King Solomon’s Temple, its length
being three times and its height one and
a half times its breadth. This four-square
plan was based on six cubes and built
on mathematically symbolic principles.
Although the architects of St Edmunds
Church were James Medland and Henry
Taylor, Albert Royds made specific
interior and exterior demands in line with
freemason symbolism.
The stained glass windows for example,
designed by Henry Holiday feature Bible
stories but also Freemason symbols such
as the Jesse Tree and Nehemiah, Ezra and
the Tyler, the guard of a Masonic Lodge
wielding the Tyler’s sword which would
have been significant for those within the
Craft of Freemasonry. In another reflection
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