Church Heritage Record 624367

Nave with west narthex and full-height aisles, south-west porch, south transept, polygonal baptistery at west end, chancel with north organ chamber, basement and various side offices.

Nave c 23m (75 ft) x 8m (25ft), aisles of uneven width, the south aisle being narrower.

Built in 1882-3, designed by James Medland Taylor and Henry Taylor of Manchester, a prolific practice in the North-West, the senior partner and chief designer being Medland. This church is one of his largest and most ambitious churches, comparable in scale with Falinge St Edmund, built 1873, which is however more complete and probably his magnum opus. Another large and in many ways comparable church is Blackpool Christ Church, where the planned south-west tower was also never built. Typical features include the complex timber roof structures of these buildings, compact massing and unusual details to the interior.

The planned south-west tower was never completed, the base serves as a porch with a gabled wooden roof. The planned lych-gate was never built, and the window tracery is simplified compared to the original concept. The north side of the church would also appear to have been rudimentarily finished off.

The new building replaced an earlier neo-classical church built in 1788, which had collapsed in 1871. This was the historic parish church of Bacup; previously the nearest Anglican place of worship had been a chapel in Newchurch, 2 miles to the west. Bacup is first mentioned in the 13th century but remained a hamlet surrounded by the (increasingly eroded) Rossendale Forest until c 1800 when the cotton industry took hold.

A typically dramatic and unorthodox church from this most wilful of Victorian architects. The church is designed in a mixture of the Early English and Early Decorated styles, although this is just a canvas onto which Taylor projects his vision. The unfinished nature of the church, however, detracts from its quality.

The church has stepped bands on two levels, due to the presence under the east end of a large undercroft, built into the slope. The east end presents two unequal gables to the road, that to the chancel with a large 5-light traceried window and four plain basement lights, the lower gable of the north vestry set back on the north side with a 3-light window which has a cusped vesica in the head.  A tall chimney rises from between the gables, which gives some extra vertical emphasis.  There are stepped angle buttresses to each bay and also a short central buttress under the chancel east window.

On the south side the 2-bay chancel has at the lower level stepped lean-to cloisters with a doorway under a row of five lancets, and above these 2-light windows with hoodmoulds.  The south transept has a large 5-light stepped lancet window with a hoodmould, and two lancets at the lower level.  The south aisle has two windows in the second bay and one in the third bay, all these simple 2-light plate tracery windows, also such a 2-light in the east end. 

The north aisle is very plain with similar windows, the buttresses irregular in form and distribution, suggesting that the original plans for this elevation were altered. The west end has a fine rose window in the gable and a lean-to extension embracing the polygonal baptistery, which has tall coupled lancets in the two exposed sides.

A large gabled porch (intended as the base for a tower) takes up the west bay. The porch roof is an overhanging gable.

The interior is of bare stone, with little to relieve this starkness except the ranks of bench pews with poppy heads filling the nave and aisles. There is a red carpet of the central aisle over the stone flagged floors all the way up to the sanctuary..

The height of the nave makes an immediate impression, with an impressive scissor-braced roof with wind-braced purlins and alternate trusses, the arch-braces supported by hammerbeams. This is carried on arcades of columns with moulded shaft-rings, moulded quatrefoil caps, and 2-centred arches. The aisle roofs have kingposts and longitudinal bracing.

There is a similar 2-bay arcade across the west end of the nave defining the narthex. The bulbous quatrefoil cap of the single pier reminded this visitor of a mushroom, perhaps partly because of the rusticated treatment of these features. Beyond the narthex and opening off it is the apsidal baptistery, elaborated by encaustic tiles with texts around the walls, another Medland Taylor trademark.

Turning east again there is a low pointed and moulded chancel arch carried on engaged columns with caps as to the arcades. 

The floor follows the slope down to the chancel, and there are stone steps to the chancel and sanctuary. The chancel roof is similar to the nave, with a central truss carried on short chamfered pilasters (carved and gilded angels as corbels), the bases of which rest on moulded circular caps to stove-pipe shaped columns curving into the wall below.