Church Heritage Record 603007

Five-bay nave with south aisle, transepts, chancel with clergy vestry and chapel, south-east tower with a spire, north-east choir vestry.

Nave estimated to be c 26m (85ft) x 10m (33ft).

Accrington has Saxon origins, and is unusual in that it was still held at the time of the Domesday Book (1086) by a Saxon Thegn, Leowine. There was a grange here of Kirkstall Abbey till the Reformation. The settlement developed slowly through the post-medieval period. In the 19th century Accrington rapidly expanded for the textile industry, as with most Lancashire towns. The parish church was built 1864-70 by H Macauley of Accrington. The south-east vestry was added by H Ross of Accrington in 1880.  There appears to have been a major refurbishment about 1910.

Designed in the Early English style with much use of lancets, the church is lofty, its townscape impact maximised by the tall south-west steeple. It is of three stages with a stair turret rising to the belfry stage in the angle  to the west, with slit openings and a conical cap. Angle buttresses of four steep weatherings climb to the parapet. The lowest stage has paired lancets in the south face, there is a slit light in the middle stage and the belfry stage has twinned louvred openings with shafted jambs under a hood-mould and a frieze of blind arches. From the moulded parapet, which is enriched with nailhead, rise ornately carved free-standing corner pinnacles on colonnettes beside the octagonal spire.

The main entrance is at the west end, through double doors with a central column supporting a tympanum with the carved emblem of the Evangelist under a banded 2-centred arch.  This is flanked by paired lancets each side.  Above this is a large plate tracery 3-light plate tracery window flanked by single lancet windows, and a quatrefoil high in the gable.

The roofs are all coped and have moulded kneelers, and there are small plain finial crosses to the gables (some missing).  There are cross gables to the south aisle bays with trefoils above 2-light plate tracery windows, as detailed above. Most of the windows are protected by metal wire mesh or polycarbonate sheets. 

The north nave wall has 2-light plate tracery windows with cusped lights and trefoils in the head, a simple gabled porch takes up the penultimate bay to the west.  The transepts have 3 lancets in their outer gables and two in the side walls, arranged in a row, above this in the gable three sexfoils arranged within a blind pointed arch, the whole giving the impression of plate tracery. 

The lower and narrower chancel is simply treated, with the sanctuary lit by a single lancet in the side walls and a 3-light plate tracery window in the east wall.   The vestry has a square headed 4-light with cusped lights, and a shouldered doorway.

Moving inside through modern glazed doors into a glazed inner lobby, there is a gallery at the west end with a pierced panelled front, carried on a pair of thin iron piers and corbels at the corners.  The interior is whitewashed, but peeling or completely missing in many places, nevertheless the church is kept clean and in excellent order.

The south aisle has a 3-bay arcade on columns with crocketed capitals, the transept arches have the same motif.   The nave is fully pewed.  It has a complex cantilevered wagon roof with a collar, and a coffered pointed barrel-vaulted ceiling in the chancel. The pointed chancel arch springs from corbelled shafts, within which is a fine 5-bay filigree wrought iron screen, dated 1911. 

There are simple 2-centred pointed arches each side of the chancel arch giving access to what was the organ chamber, but is now an ambulatory.  This has a travertine floor.  A similar the clergy vestry (the upper part is blind, a smaller doorway is inserted within it), and a shouldered doorway leads from the sanctuary to the latter.  The sanctuary features choir stalls, an ornate stone reredos, and a credence desk with carved angel corbel.  The floors are carpeted.

The north transept contains a memorial chapel dedicated in 1992 to the 11th Battalion, the “Accrington Pals”, who were all but wiped out on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.  This has an altar under a baldacchino, on which the organ stands.  The chapel has a Portugese marble floor and fine mahogany bench pews.