Angela Connelly
Email: angela.connelly-2@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk
First floor, Arthur Lewis building.
MA (Econ) Politics (University of Manchester, 2005).
BA (Hons.) Politics (University of Strathclyde, 2002).
Methodist Central Halls in Sacred Places.
Supervisors: Prof. Michael Hebbert and Andrew Crompton.
Methodist Central Halls exist in all British cities and are flexible, multi-functional spaces used on a daily basis for a wide range of purposes. They are widely perceived as public space but they are also sacred - camouflaged churches, created as sites for missionary activity and social outreach by a faith which from its origins has challenged the dichotomy between sacred and secular space.
Halls were and are used for a very wide range of public events: voting, concerts, plays, film-shows, trades-union meetings, employment exchanges, clinics, clubs and societies. Many of them occupy entire city blocks. Central Hall Westminster is a national landmark; Central Hall Manchester an unobtrusive street entrance. As urban multifunctional spaces they embody characteristics of great interest to urban designers.
The Central Halls are the most prominent monuments of urban non-conformity, and in terms of architectural history they represent a unique building type of great interest and relevance to the Religion and Society agenda. Yet they have never been studied in depth. This PhD project addresses a substantial gap in the literature.
Funded by the AHRC/ESRC, the doctoral project is a collaboration between the Methodist Church Property office, based in Central Hall Manchester, and the University of Manchester. It draws on the Methodist archives and other holdings of the John Rylands Library.
The project has a specific monographic focus on the Central Hall as a building type. The Methodist archives of the John Ryland University Library provide the basis for a outline narrative of the commissioning and operation of the Halls and their architectural history - Equally, the project is about the buildings in use and their meanings for the church and the wider public. Research into the social and religious significance of the Central Halls over the long Twentieth Century will be set against the backgrounds of declining religious affinity and observance and continuing prominence of places of worship in the urban landscape and collective memory. Using visual and photographic material, it will involve interviews and oral history as well as press and archival sources, and a combination of a national narrative with case studies of particular cities and sites.