Church Heritage Record 603304

3-bay nave with north aisle, chancel, north vestry and porch.

Nave 10m (32ft) by 5m (16ft).

The church is at the latest late 13th-century in origin, as evidenced by the only obvious medieval features, the chancel east window and the bell of 1296. The single-cell layout and thick walls might indicate an earlier, perhaps 12th century origin, however only archaeology could determine this.  Certainly there are several phases of alterations visible in the walls, which might repay careful recording.  Claughton itself is mentioned in Domesday Book, although there is no mention of a church or chapel.

There is a panel mounted high on the west wall with the date 1602 which probably originally came from the mortuary chapel on the south side of the church, and may commemorate its construction.

The style of the belcote and the date of the other bell (1727) seem to indicate a further, perhaps minor programme of restoration at this later date (the VCH gives a date of 1702 for the church).  There would appear to have been another, more major  phase of restoration or repair c 1815, of which the only obvious survival is the neo-classical font.  Talk at the time was of “taking down and rebuilding” the church, though it is unclear if this radical programme was executed.

The church was thoroughly restored and extended in 1904 by the prolific Lancashire architects Austin & Paley, who added the north aisle, a north-east vestry, and a north-west porch, and blocked the original doorway in the west wall.  This may have involved the demolition of the south-east mortuary chapel.  It would appear that the only medieval feature left intact by the restorations is the east window.

The architectural style chosen by Austin & Paley in their restoration and extension work of 1904 is that of the date on the carved panel, ie c 1600, so that the church is reasonably homogenous in appearance.  Indeed, the north-east vestry extension is so sensitively done that one cannot discern a join, with the random coursing of the old build carried through. 

The dominant feature as one approaches from the west is the belcote with its open segmental pediment, which houses two bells identical in size but of very different dates, the older being until recently feted as the oldest dated example in England.  The other bell is dated 1727, which may well be the date of the belcote itself.

Beneath this, there is a carved square panel with moulded border containing the arms of the Croft family (who also built the Hall) and the name W Croft, with the date 1602.  Visible above and below the panel is a tall blocked opening, and there are other blocked features in the fabric adjacent to this, which might represent old belfry openings.

These changes were almost certainly effected in the restoration of 1904, when the panel was removed from the demolished Croft mortuary chapel on the south side of the chancel and remounted here.  A photograph taken before the restoration shows the original tall pointed west doorway below these features, which can still be discerned in the fabric, but the wall above this was cloaked in thick ivy growth. However, a painting within the church seems to show openings in the wall above the doorway, perhaps those noted above.

The nave has a low-pitched roof, clearly altered when the belcote was added, with stone copings and kneelers.  There is a large buttress of three weatherings at the junction of nave and aisle, also of 1904.  The north wall is pierced by three windows with panel tracery, two two-lights in the nave separated by another thick buttress of three weatherings from the three-light window for the chancel. 

These would normally date in this part of the country to the beginning of the 17th century, though they may be wholly a product of the restoration of 1904, Austin & Paley attempting to create the look of a church built in the date given on the panel, 1602; an engraving shows the south wall before this date with what appear to be Y-tracery windows, which would fit well with an early 19th-century restoration.

There is a roof scar on the south face of the chancel, either from an early 19th-century vestry or other ancillary building; there is also a blocked doorway giving access to the chancel just visible under this scar. The scar cuts across the corner quoins, which look quite fresh.  The chancel east window is as noted above the only obvious medieval architectural feature surviving in situ.  It is of three lights, with cusped intersecting tracery.

The porch has stone foundations but the walls and double-doors are of panelled oak with blind tracery in a Tudor/Jacobean style, the sides open with turned balusters.  It has a steeply pitched roof with a moulded weatherboard. The porch gives access to the north aisle.

The addition of the north aisle by Austin & Paley has removed any evidence of earlier phases on this side.  The aisle has a cusped single light in the west wall within a square-headed frame and three determinedly domestic two-light square-headed mullioned windows with moulded lintels, the western ones paired.  A narrow blind clearstorey strip was left above the steeply pitched lean-to roof.

There is a similar pair of windows in the east face of the gabled vestry, and again a two-light window in the west face.  A square-headed doorway with shaped lintel gives access though the north wall near the west corner.  There is a chimney rising from the gable up the nave wall, which projects above the eaves.

Moving to the interior, the north arcade (of 1904) of three bays has round piers with late Perpendicular style capitals carrying double-chamfered pointed arches.  There is a square-headed doorway giving access to the vestry, which has a medieval arched window head, perhaps originally part of a quatrefoil window from the chapel or west wall, relocated in the north wall. 

There is no chancel arch, three steps up to the chancel and two more to the sanctuary.  The floor is of stone flags (woodblock in the vestry) with much carpetting, the roof a king-post construction in pitched pine.  The ordering and furnishings are conventional and mostly of 1904, with some notable exceptions.