It will mark the end of an era stretching back to the late 1860s.

Declining numbers and an ageing community have forced this once flagship synagogue in Leicester Road, Salford, to merge with the even older Great and New Synagogue - itself a merger from the 1960s - based at Stenecourt on Holden Road, Broughton Park.

Surrounded by growing numbers of chassidic shteibls and Lithuanian "yeshivish" minyonim, the Central and North Manchester has found itself left behind in today's rapidly developing strictly Orthodox community. But it was not always so.

The Manchester Central Synagogue was originally the Chevras Volkervishker Shul, founded in 1871 by poor immigrant Lithuanians from the region of Walkawishk (between Baranowicz and Slonim) in the Red Bank slums near Victoria station.

In 1894 it moved to a rented building at the corner of Park Street and Cheetham Hill Road and became the Central Synagogue.

By now it was an up- and-coming congregation with fiery, Yiddish- speaking, rabbis such as Yosef Yaffe and Yisroel Yoffey.

Rabbi Yoffey went on to become the first president of the Manchester branch of Agudas Yisrael Organisation and the Manchester Mizrachi Organisation and a co-founder of the Manchester Yeshiva in 1911.

The Central Synagogue joined the Manchester Shechita Board and Rabbi Yoffey became one of the leading dayanim (rabbinical judges) in Manchester in the 1920s and 30s.

The shul moved north to Heywood Street, Hightown, in 1928 and was one of the main centres of adult Jewish education with hundreds every day learning Talmud, Mishna and biblical commentaries.

At a time when Dr Chaim Weizmann was holding Zionist meetings at his Marks & Spencer-funded offices around the corner with attendances of 15 or 20, 10 times that number were learning Talmud daily at the Central Synagogue.

One of its well-known chazanim was Aaron Segal, a brother of the late Manchester Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Yehuda Zev Segal.

The North Manchester Synagogue was founded in 1892 as the Brodyer Shul on Bury New Road by immigrants from the important market town of Brody on the Austrian Poland-Russian border.

It adopted the Ashkenazi liturgy (chassidic émigrés from Brody founded the Polish Synagogue, also on Bury New Road) and quickly developed as an important centre of Torah study and charity. The North Manchester incorporated the Courland Shul in 1904 and the Beth Hamedrash Hagadol in 1905. During the Second World War, it opened a Broughton Park branch on Cheltenham Crescent that later became the base for the Adass Yeshurun Synagogue.

In 1956, the North Manchester sold both its buildings and moved to a converted chapel on the corner of Leicester Road and Roston Road. In 1978. the Central Shul left Heywood Street and merged with the North Manchester, bringing with it the Hightown Central Synagogue, Elm Street, and the Beth Jacob Shul, Bishop Street, as younger generations moved north to the outer suburbs.

Now, exactly 30 years later, all these historic synagogues are to close and their former members dispersed.

The last president of the Central and North Manchester, Barry Cohen, said: "The new combined shul will be known as the Great, New and Central Manchester Synagogue.

"Our staff, Rabbi Jacob Rubinstein, secretary Melvyn Green and sexton Reuben Mankoff will be redeployed to Stenecourt to serve the enlarged congregation.

"It is very sad to see the shul close, but nothing stays the same and we look forward to joining the dynamic community at Stenecourt."

Five years ago, local entrepreneur and property developer Rabbi Ayreh Ehrentreu acquired the synagogue hall and ancillary buildings and it is believed he is now interested in acquiring the main building.

No development plans have so far been announced.