Built as an ambitious parish church in the confident years after the restoration of the hierarchy, and the Cathedral since the creation of the Diocese of Lancaster in 1924.  A fine, aspiring building, the chef d’oeuvre of Edward Paley. The northwest steeple is a local landmark, 240 ft high and excellently detailed. Transepts and a high nave and chancel, with an interior that is quite light, yet rich and impressively proportioned. The  style  is  that  of  c1300,  the  material  warm  buff  stone. The baptistery on the north side is like a chapter house; it was added in 1895 by Austin & Paley, and has good group value with the main building.

Lawful Catholic worship in Lancaster started with the building by Dr John Rigby of a chapel (now the Palatine Hall) in Dalton Square in 1799. By 1847 this chapel had become too small for the growing congregation, and a three acre plot was bought at Greenfield for £2,200. The school, convent and cemetery were built first. In 1856 several suns of money became available for the building of a new church, including £2,000 from the will of Thomas Coulston. Plans were drawn up by Edward Paley under the guidance of the Rev. Richard Brown; the foundation stone was laid by the Dr Goss, the Bishop of Liverpool, on April 29 1857, and the new church consecrated and dedicated by Dr Goss on October 4 1859.

In 1924 the Liverpool diocese was divided, and St Peter’s became the Cathedral for the new Diocese of Lancaster.

Description

The list entry (below) describes the building in some detail, but does not generally give attributions for the design of various features. The following puts some flesh on the list description, and is drawn from notes prepared by Clare Hartwell for the revised Pevsner volume for Lancashire.

St Peter’s reminds us that if Hubert Austin brought genius to the partnership, Paley’s contribution  should  not  be  overlooked. The church retains an elaborate decorative scheme with many furnishings.

The narthex has a spiral stair to the elaborate west gallery, which is supported by marble piers. This was rebuilt in 1888 by Austin & Paley following acquisition of a new organ. Lofty six-bay nave arcades, stately vaulted apse. Densely timbered roof with scissor braces, stencilled and with a stencilled frieze with Lancastrian emblems by Bernard Watson to the designs of Francis Roberts who was responsible for extensive and sensitive restoration in 1994-5.

On  the  southwest side  a  door  connects  with  the  presbytery,  then  comes  the  two-bay Coulston Chantry Chapel, founded in 1856, with an arcaded entrance, stone vaulted ceiling and an elaborate carved reredos by Geflowski. Confessionals follow, then another chapel like the first, of the Whiteside Chantry and St Thomas More Chapel, with a reredos relief carving of the Agony in the Garden by Lane. South transept altar, the Sacred Heart, with a carved reredos and alabaster panels by Edward Simpson. The south chancel has two chapels, sharing rich arcading to the chancel. The St Charles Borromeo Chapel (west) has a painted reredos with a figure of the saint and scenes of his works during the sixteenth century plague of Milan. To the east, and accessible only from the convent (see below) is the Convent Chapel, divided from the chancel by glazing and ironwork screens. The northeast Lady Chapel has mosaic floor with lilies etc, a spherical triangular east window with glass by Shrigley & Hunt and an alabaster reredos (Annunciation, with an elaborate canopy over a statue of Our Lady).

The sanctuary has been converted to the Blessed Sacrament chapel. The furnishings relate partly to a reordering of 1909, reinstated by Francis Roberts in 1994-5. The reredos is a huge triptych by Giles Gilbert Scott, . 1909, with scenes from the Passion, executed by Farmer & Brindley. The painting was done by Tosi of London and the figures modelled by Miss Reid. The outer leaves have painted scenes framed by gilded traceried panels in relief, the inner leaves scenes in sharp relief with yet more complex traceried surrounds. At the top, the Crucifixion with attendant figures and angels. The elaborate wall paintings were begun in 1894, and show Christ in majesty  with  attendant  saints,  angels,  etc.,  north  side;  the  Virgin  and Child  with attendants, south side. Blind arcading to the apse has more paintings within the arcading, Saints, missionary saints, etc., with minstrel angels above. The screen is iron and brass with candlesticks across the top. Ornate choir stalls by Austin & Paley carved by Bridgeman of Lichfield in 1899. Dec in inspiration, though with flat testers. They have misericords, six on each side, with beasts, angels, etc. and, more memorably, a scene of a grimacing child being spanked. The nave altar belongs to the Francis Roberts reordering and has over it a large chandelier with angels at the centre. There is a stone pulpit, elongated and low with minimal carving.

The northeast baptistery is a tour de force, the furnishings integral to the scheme, with a carefully considered iconography.  There is a short linking corridor with stained glass by Shrigley and Hunt leading to iron gates guarded by statues of Processus and Martinianus  (Peter’s jailers in Rome, converted and baptised by him) in the uniform of Roman soldiers. There is a two-light window showing on one side the Serpent at the ear of a driven, clean-shaven Herod, sword in hand, an Innocent crushed beneath his foot, with poppies, a fox and the Tree of Knowledge in the background. The other light is much more conventional, Christ cradling a baby in a summery setting with lilies. The significance of the sacrament of Baptism is underlined by the dim light of the passage and the bright space beyond, with the stern Roman soldiers guarding the entrance  adding  a  primitive  note,  while  the  menace  of  evil  is  embodied  in  the depiction of Herod. Inside, all is light, with a stone vaulted ceiling. The font is placed centrally and raised, Connemara marble with an attractive architectural oak lid. At the east end an elaborate carved stone altar and reredos by R. Boulton in a niche. The stained glass is all by Shrigley & Hunt, fine work in carefully chosen pale tones, with St Peter and St Paul and various baptismal scenes.

Other stained glass is largely by Hardman, including English Martyrs, north transept, a rose window with red roses, south transept, both of 1888, and scenes from the life of St Peter in the north aisle. Other glass to note is the Assumption window, SW aisle, by Shrigley & Hunt, late nineteenth century.

Significant monuments include that to Dr John Rigby, builder of the chapel in Dalton Square (+ 1818) in the south transept: Faith with a cross by Richard Westmacott Jun., executed  c.1860,  after  Rigby’s  body  was removed  from  Dalton  Square  to  the cemetery in the new church. In the Whiteside Chapel, a good brass with crocketed pinnacles and a cross over, to members of the Whiteside family. In the Coulston Chapel another good brass, with a kneeling figure before a cross, with panels on each side with names   of   members   of   the   Coulston   family   and   an   inscription commemorating the chapel’s founder, Thomas Coulston (+ 1856). On the north arcade, a brass to the Rev. Richard Brown, who helped draw up plans for the building; a tonsured figure holding a model of the church.  At the southwest end a bronze seated St Peter, a copy of that in St Peter’s, Rome.

Adjoining Buildings

A complex of buildings to the south and east are all by E.G.Paley or successor firms, separately listed Grade II. The passage between the church and the ancillary buildings has a stencilled scheme by Francis Roberts and a stained glass window of St Edmund Arrowsmith, in front of Lancaster Castle, the scene of his martyrdom.  The attached southeast presbytery was built at the same time as the church and is modestly Gothic, with a full-height bay with a pyramidal roof and windows with arched heads. It was extended by Austin & Paley in similar style, 1895-6.

St Walburga’s Convent, to the east and set back from Balmoral Road, was built 1851-3, and is thus the earliest building on the site. It is attached to the Cathedral southeast Convent Chapel by a corridor. L-shaped with mullioned windows with shouldered or cusped heads. Tall gabled wing and a three-bay lower range with upper windows in half dormers extending above the eaves, a favourite Paley motif.

Further east on Balmoral Road Balmoral RC School was designed in 1897 by Austin & Paley. A disposition of unequal gabled ranges along the street, two to the east with tall arched windows with mullions, transoms and plate-traceried heads lighting full-height classrooms. The two to the west project forward of the others and have two storeys and upper arched windows flanked by windows with flat heads. On the east side of the precinct, off East Road, a cemetery was laid out 1849-50.

List description

II*

Roman Catholic cathedral, originally a parish church. 1857-59 and 1895-96. By Edward Paley, with a later baptistry by Paley and Austin. Gothic Revival style. Sandstone ashlar and slate roofs, except for the baptistry roof which is of copper. A tall aisled 5-bay nave with transepts, an aisled 2-bay chancel with a semi-octagonal apse and side chapels, a tower and spire in the north-west corner and an octagonal baptistry attached to the north transept. The west facade has a 5-light window with Geometric tracery, and below it is a deeply recessed doorway with 2 shafts with foliated capitals and orders of crockets and fleurons in the arch. The side elevations have 3-light aisle windows with Decorated tracery and paired clerestory windows flanked by blind arches. The north transept has a 4-light window with Geometric tracery, while the south transept has a round window composed of a 10-light wheel window surrounded by 10 circles. The clerestory windows of the chancel are spherical triangles, while the tall 3-light windows in the apse have Decorated tracery. The baptistry is slightly more decorated, with 2-light windows with panelled tracery and deep buttresses. The tower has 4 stages, separated by string courses, and a stair turret in the north- west corner. The lowest stage has, on the west side, a 3-light window with intersecting tracery and, on the north side, a recessed porch under a shallow gable, over which is a canopied niche containing a statue of St Peter. The second stage has on each face a row of 6 gabled and shafted arches, of which only the central 2 have windows. The third stage contains a single small window, while the belfry stage has paired openings, each containing 2 sub-arches. The graceful spire rises to a height of 73m, with 3 tiers of lucarnes on the cardinal faces.

INTERIOR: 5-bay nave with 2-centred arches of 2 orders of quarter- round mouldings carried on slender round columns with foliated capitals and high octagonal plinths. Directly above each arch is a pair of clerestory windows, whose cusped rear-arches are supported by a central colonnette. Between these windows other colonnettes on foliated corbels carry the principal trusses of the arch-braced roof. The aisles have simple, steeply-pitched rafter roofs. On the south are 2 chantry chapels, each approached through a pair of arches. The arches north and south of the crossing are slightly higher than those of the nave and have clustered shafts. The chancel arch, also with clustered shafts, is much higher and rises to the ridge of the wooden vault of the chancel. This is painted with arabesques and angels and has tierceron ribs and foliated bosses, except for the one over the original position of the high altar, now moved to the west bay of the chancel, which shows Christ in Majesty. On the south and north sides pairs of arches lead respectively to the Convent Chapel and to the Lady Chapel, whose wooden panelled ceiling is painted with fleurs-de-lys and crowns. Above them, but beneath the clerestory windows, is a deep band of painting representing on the south Our Lady enthroned and surrounded by female saints and on the north St Peter and male saints. Around the base of the apse are 2 rows of 5 gabled canopies containing paintings of other saints, with angel musicians above. The carved oak choir stalls have crocketed canopies. he baptistry, approached through fine wrought-iron gates flanked by niches under nodding ogee heads containing statues, has an octagonal stone vault. The floor and font are of polychrome marble, the font bowl being supported on 4 short columns. The oak font cover is a spirelet suspended from a chain. In the south transept is a triptych, by Giles Gilbert Scott, in which the carved and painted panels represent scenes from the Passion. (In 1909 this was the reredos of the high altar.) At the west end of the north aisle is a large seated bronze figure of St Peter. The west gallery contains an organ. The glass in the apse windows and in the west window is original and by Hardman, showing the Ascension and St Peter and St Paul in the east and Christ in Glory at the west. The church is the finest and dominant feature of an important group, also containing a graveyard, school, convent and presbytery (qv), which was built between 1847 and 1859.

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The building was formerly the town jail. It was also used as stables and, during the Second World War, as a canteen for Italian prisoners of war. In February 1950, Father Hill of Penrith acquired the building, which was then converted into St Wulstan’s Church. It was named in honour of Bishop Wulstan Pearson, the first Bishop of Lancaster. The church was detached from the parish of Penrith in the late 1950s, and transferred to Our Lady and St Joseph’s, Warwick Square, Carlisle. At some point it was agreed that the building would be shared by the Catholic Church and the Methodist Church. The Methodists hold services on a Sunday and Mass is said on a Saturday evening. On 20 September 1993 Cardinal Basil Hume celebrated Mass to  mark the fortieth anniversary of the establishment of St Wulstan’s church.

Description

The church is a rectangular, single-volume stone structure with a slate roof. The only entrance is via a full width stone porch in the gable end. The building has been much altered over the years, as the stonework along both sides of the building testifies: there are various blocked doorways and irregular-shaped brickwork.

The  interior  decoration  dates  mainly  from  1953.  It  includes  an  oak reredos and canopy, wooden floor, oak pews, white painted walls, Stations of the Cross carved in copper. The diamond leaded windows are also ca.1953. There is a modern wooden altar.

The church is overlooked by the large Anglican church of St Augustine (1869), and the contrast between the two – one humble and small, the other ornate and enormous – could not be more marked.

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A church was founded at Alston Lane in 1765. The present building dates from 1856. The attached presbytery was added by Fr Walton (after 1874).

List description

II

Roman Catholic Church, 1856 by I. & C. Hansom (Pevsner). Rock-faced sandstone with steep slate roof. Comprises a seven-bay nave and one-bay chancel with continuous steep slate roof. The bays are separated by buttresses with offsets. The nave windows are of 2 pointed lights with a quatrefoil over. The chancel is lit by 2 narrow windows with cusped lights and a trefoil. The entrance is in the 6th bay from the east, through a doorway with moulded surround and 2-centred head. In the east wall is a window with geometrical tracery. The west wall has diagonal buttresses, with a central buttress with offsets partly supporting an open octagonal bellcote on a square base with an octagonal pointed stone cap. Inside there is a west gallery of pitch pine with organ, a chancel arch of 2 chamfered orders, a carved stone reredos, and an open timber roof with very slender scissor-braced trusses. The glass in the east window is said to be by Hardman (Pevsner).

Listing NGR: SD5972234885

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A chapel was not built in Ambleside until 1887. Known locally as the ‘Tin Chapel’ (presumably a prefabricated corrugated iron structure), it was situated on the site where a statue of Our Lady now stands in Wansfell Road. The building provided seating for a hundred people, and comprised a chancel, nave, transepts, north porch and southeast Lady Chapel. Diocesan records of 1887 point to some confusion over the dedication of the church – ‘Our Lady of Ambleside’ and ‘S. Maria Amabilis’. On hearing that a Catholic church dedicated to Our Lady was being built at Ambleside, Aubrey DeVere, a poet and friend of Tennyson, wrote two sonnets entitled ‘Maria Amabilis’. They were dated 24 January 1887.

The current church replaced the tin chapel and was built in 1933 from designs by George J. Hughes. The builder was Hugh Rainey of Barrow. It cost £4,855 16s 8d. A new high altar built of Westmorland stone (with marble inlay) was added in 1954.

Description

The church faces north-south and its nave is a three-bay square. The north side has a tripartite Gothic window with two flanking smaller Gothic windows which are identical to the metal, leaded windows in the west and east sides of the nave. To the south, a pyramidal-roofed tower rises over the sanctuary.

The building is rendered, with a stone plinth, slate roof and slate cladding to the tower and part of the north face. The roof of the nave is pitched, with hips over the east and west flanks of the church. There is a timber framed porch at the main entrance.

The nave interior is a single volume with two aisles, plaster walls and a timber roof. According to Fr O’Dea, the roof supports started to fail around ten years after the church was built; the roof was consequently shored up with metal supports which span the width of the interior. A plain Gothic arch marks the start of the towered sanctuary. Either side of the sanctuary are small side altars simply decorated with wall carvings in wood and stone. The windows in the nave are of plain glass, with the exception of some coloured glass in the tripartite north window. The windows in the side chapels and in the tower above the sanctuary have some coloured glass.

The interior is simply furnished, and while the church decoration is distinctively of its time (the round green-glass lamp fittings are particularly indicative of the 1930s), the overall impression is of a solidly-crafted Arts and Crafts-style building.

Decorative work, including new carpets and some restoration of the plain pine pews, was initiated in the church in the c1970s and finished by Fr O’Dea. The simple sanctuary altar table has been brought forward to meet new liturgical requirements.

In 2021 a framed oil painting of The Good Samaritan by Delmar Banner (German-born artist and friend of Beatrix Potter) was hung in the church (information from Jamie Nugent, whose father donated the painting).

The presbytery was probably also built in 1933 (continuous stone plinth around both buildings), and is an attractive arts-and-crafts design with Gothic touches. A complete refurbishment of the ground floor was undertaken in the 1970s. Meeting space is provided here.

Entry amended by AHP 18.08.2024

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In 1907 a mission was established by Canon James Taylor and his brother Fr Roger Taylor, priests in the parish of Lytham St Peter from 1873. A temporary chapel was built in 1908.  The permanent church was built at the expense of the Taylor Brothers, who came from a prosperous Fylde farming family, and built prolifically in these parts (see Lytham St Peter, Thornton Sacred Heart, Morecambe St Mary). The Pugin firm remained their favoured architects (Cuthbert Welby Pugin, Peter Paul having died in 1904).  The cost of the church was £12,000 including furnishings. The foundation stone was laid on 22 August 1909 by Dr Whiteside, Bishop of Liverpool, and opened in 1914 by Dr Whiteside, by then Archbishop of Liverpool. The peal of eight bells in the tower was blessed in 1911.

List description

II

Roman Catholic church, with attached presbytery. 1909-14 (dated 1911 on north gable wall); by Pugin, Pugin and Pugin, for James and Roger Taylor. Coursed squared yellow sandstone with red sandstone dressings and graduated Cumbrian slate roof. Decorated style. Nave on approx. north-south axis, with east and west aisles, double transepts incorporating side chapels, sacristy continued from west transept (and linked to presbytery by a short passage or cloister), sanctuary at south end and detached north-east tower linked to east aisle. The tall 3-stage tower, with angle buttresses carried up to octagonal pinnacles, and various weathered bands, has a 2-centred arched north doorway with deeply moulded surround (leading to an internal porch), a lettered band above this, a tall canopied niche containing a statue and flanked by narrow 2-stage cusped lancets, pairs of quatrefoils between stages above this, a belfry stage with pairs of tall louvred windows, and an elaborate machicolated parapet with cusped machicolation, pierced lettering and crow-stepped coping. The gable of the nave, divided by buttresses into 3 bays, has a similar lettered band, segmental-headed 2-light traceried windows below this in the outer bays, a tall canopied niche with a statue in the centre bay, 3 tall narrow 2-light traceried windows (that in the centre stepped up, over the niche) and a low 3-light window in the apex. The 5-bay aisles, with buttresses, moulded cornices and parapets with upstands between bays, have 2- centred arched 3-light traceried windows with linked hoodmoulds; and attached to the 1st bay of the west aisle is a 5-sided baptistery which has a one-light windows in each side and a tall polygonal roof. The clerestory of the nave has segmental-headed 3-light windows, and straight buttresses carried up as rectangular pinnacles which have panels of blind tracery. The transepts have coupled gables projected from pitched roofs at right angles to the axis of the nave, a 3-light traceried window in each gable, and on the south side of each an unusual shallow canted chapel with high-set fenestration and a tall saddleback roof. The sanctuary has blind arcading at mid level and above that a 2-centred arched 5-light traceried window. INTERIOR: 7-bay arcades with cylindrical columns and 2-centred arches, and lateral arches bridging the aisles; elaborate carved reredoses to altars in the sanctuary and both chapels. HISTORY: built by the brothers James and Roger Taylor, priests, who were members of a prosperous Fylde farming family, and donated to the diocese of Lancaster.

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The church was built in 1958 from designs by N. M. Phillips of Workington (Catholic Building Review, 1959). The present presbytery was built in c1980.

Description

The church is cruciform in plan and built of dark red brick, with pitched slate roofs. The nave and sanctuary are a single volume, with the latter pointing approximately south east. The church has two transepts, one of which is used as a sacristy. This has a c1960s, single-storey link to the neighbouring presbytery. The east transept is a side chapel. At the north end of the nave is a slim tower with a copper-clad saddleback roof, marking the entrance to the church. The windows are of metal-framed plain glass, and are well-maintained.

The interior has a shallow segmental-vaulted plastered, painted ceiling, with plastered and painted walls. There is a shallow parabolic arched recess behind the altar containing a crucifix. Furnishing is simple – Stations of the Cross on the nave wall and a modern altar table. There are oak pews and a wooden parquet floor.

Entry revised by AHP 17.12.2020

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With the building of the Lancaster to Kendal railway line, Arnside and Silverdale developed as seaside resorts. In 1926 a former Educational Institute was established as a chapel-of-ease. In 1977 the congregation moved to the present site, a National School building of 1880. The church is served from Milnthorpe.

Description

The church is an attractive late nineteenth century former school building, stone-built and Gothic, with a datestone in the gable on the main frontage. The entrance is placed asymmetrically to the right. The interior is a single volume space with modern furnishings.

Entry amended by AHP 17.12.2020

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*Update: Chapel now closed and demolished*

Askam-in-Furness owes its existence to H.W. Schneider’s discovery in 1850 of the country’s second largest iron ore deposit. Furnaces were established in 1864, and smelting began in 1867. Terraced houses were created for the workers. The mine closed in 1918, and the industrial buildings were demolished in 1933.

Askam has two churches, one Methodist and one Catholic, reflecting the social background of those who came to work here. At first Catholics worshipped in a prefabricated hit. The building now used as the Catholic church was built as a Nonconformist chapel or hall in 1907 (datestone on front gable). It was dedicated to use as a Catholic chapel-of-ease by the Rt. Rev. T.B. Pearson, Auxiliary Bishop of Lancaster, in May 1960 (Morecambe Visitor, 25 May 1960). It is a modest building with red sandstone facing to the front façade, otherwise faced in pebbledash. Small gabled porch. Rectangular headed windows containing stained glass. Interior not inspected.

Entry amended by AHP 6.10.2025

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A church was built in 1951 as an offshoot of Sacred Heart, and serving nearby post-war housing. This is now the parish hall; in 1975 a new church was built at right angles to this, from designs by Tom Mellor & Partners (CBR, 1976). The exterior is architecturally plain, a brick box which is windowless on the front elevation, and with a projecting porch on the right. Interior not inspected.

Entry amended by AHP 17.12.2020

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*Update: The church closed in 2025*

Expansion of the ironworks and shipyard led to the establishment in 1899 (from St Mary’s) of two new missions – St Patrick’s on Walney Island and Sacred Heart. For the latter, a dual-purpose school and chapel was built to the designs of Sinnott & Powell of Manchester, and this survives as the school. The original plans for this building are on the file in the diocesan offices. Expansion of the school and demands on space led to the new church being built on Lumley Street in 1929, from designs by L.A.G. Prichard. The contractors were Rainey Bros, and the cost was £7,500 (Barrow News, 28 December 1929).

The church was reordered and a new porch added in 1976. In 1981 the roof of the nave collapsed and was rebuilt with the addition of substantial and ungainly external buttresses.

Description (2005)

Brick built church with terracotta trim, in Basilican-Byzantine style. Broad and low west tower, round headed windows, uninterrupted ridge line to nave and chancel roof. The interior consists of an unaisled nave with uninterrupted views, spanned by segmental arched vaulting. Tripartite arched arrangement at division with sanctuary, high  central  arch  with  lower  flanking  ones  giving  on  to  side  chapels;  stylised Byzantine capitals. Stations of the Cross from Italy, in iron frames.

Entry amended by AHP 18.09.2026

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