A good  stone- built  Gothic  church  and  presbytery,  by  the  architect of  Lancaster Cathedral, with a good interior.

The first chapel was built in the town centre c1790 and survives as a magistrates’ training centre. The present church was built in 1857-8, at the same time as Paley’s larger church of St Peter, Lancaster (now the Cathedral). Church, presbytery, school and schoolmaster’s house were all built at the same time.

Description

See list description (below). The following furnishings are also worthy of note:

• Elaborate marble high altar and reredos, with painted figures of saints within Gothic aedicules, marble altar rails with brass gates
• A large framed oil painting form the former church (the Deposition, in the manner of Rubens) now hanging on the north wall of the nave.

List description

II

Roman Catholic church, 1857-8 by E.G. Paley. Sandstone rubble with slate roofs. Comprises a west tower, a nave and chancel under a continuous roof, a north aisle under a pitched roof, and a north porch. Tower has diagonal buttresses, an octagonal stair turret with stone spirelet, and an embattled parapet. The paired bell openings have 2 cusped ogee lights under a pointed head. The west window is of 3 cusped lights under a pointed head with Geometric tracery. The west doorway has a moulded pointed arch. The north aisle has 5 bays to the east of the porch, separated by buttresses. The left-hand window is of 2 trefoiled lights under a head of pointed arches. The other windows are of 2 trefoiled lights under a pointed head with quatrefoil, The south nave windows are of 2 lights with paired trefoiled heads. The east chapel window is of 2 lights and the chancel window of 5 lights, both with pointed heads and Geometric tracery. The porch has diagonal buttresses, a steep roof, and a doorway with moulded pointed arch. Interior has 5-bay arcade of pointed arches chamfered in 2 orders, on round columns with capitals. The moulded pointed chancel arch has clustered shafts as responds. The tower arch is pointed, its lower part filled by a timber screen which supports a gallery. The nave has an open timber roof with cusped windbraces, trusses with curved braces to the collars, straight braces from the collars to the principals, and a collar plate. The aisle roof has scissor-braced rafters. The chancel has a waggon roof with dormer windows on each side. Between the chancel and the north aisle there is a moulded pointed arch. The east windows contain original glass.

Heritage Details