The Buildings of South Lancashire

Extracts from
'The Buildings of England
​South Lancashire'
by Nikolaus Pevsner

The Buildings of England is an unrivalled series of comprehensive architectural guides covering every English county all periods from prehistoric times to the present day.
​The South Lancashire volume was first published in 1969.

Atherton (Chowbent)

UNITARIAN CHURCH, Bolton Old Road. Built in 1721 as a Presbyterian chapel. Enlarged in 1901. Brick with arched windows in two tiers. Nice open cupola. Bulgy stone gatepiers.
 
Cadishead

ST MARY, Liverpool Road. 1891 by J. Lowe. No tower. The W end is incomplete.

WESLEYAN CHAPEL, Liverpool Road. 1873-4. Red brick with a pedimental gable. Italianate, if anything.

On the W side of the road is one three-bay Georgian house with a column-porch.

Croft

CHRIST CHURCH, Lady Lane. 1832-3 by Blore, a Commissioners’ church. It cost £1457. Red sandstone, S W steeple with wholly incorrect spire of quite an enterprising design. Lancet windows and short chancel. The galleries have been removed.

ST LEWIS (R.C.), Little Town. 1826-7. Brick, to the E the church, to the W and flush with it the priest’s house. The latter has a chequer front and a doorway with recessed columns, the former arched windows and a W pediment and pedimented W porch. The E wall inside is distinguished by pilasters, as the Catholics liked it.
 
Culcheth

HOLY TRINITY, Newchurch. 1904-5 by Travers & Ramsden. Incredibly retardataire. This brand of neo-Norman might be 1850. – BRASS. A brass inscription to Elizabeth Egerton 1646 is signed John Sale sculpsit – an oddity of the first order.

LITTLE WOOLDEN HALL, 1 ½ m. WSW. Brick, c.1800. A seven bay front with the three middle bays a little recessed. Niches l. and r. of the doorway.
 
Glazebrook
​
STATION. With gables with divers patterns to the bargeboards. The water basin with dock leaf is dated 1872.

Light Oaks Hall, Glazebury. Photo © David Dixon (cc-by-sa/2.0)

Glazebury

ALL SAINTS. 1851 by E. H. Shellard.

HURST HALL. Mr Jeffrey Howarth allowed me to mention the barn, which must have been the hall of a house and seems to date from the C15. It has heavy timbers: tie-beams on arched braces, cusped kingposts and cusped raking queenposts, and three tiers of quatrefoiled wind-braces.

LIGHT OAKS HALL. The E side is spectacular, evidently possible only if the house was originally much larger. It consists of a five-plus-five-light transomed window on the ground floor with the doorway close to it, a window of the same size above the other, and five-light windows with transoms further on on the r. There is a date 1657 inside and that suits the façade fragment. See image above.

Hollins Green

ST HELEN. 1735 the body of the church, and perhaps the cupola. All other detail 1882.

Irlam

ST JOHN BAPTIST. Liverpool Road, Jenny Green, Higher Irlam. 1865-6 by J. Medland Taylor. Small, with a crossing tower with broach spire, very short transepts, and an apse. The W wall has a most unorthodox rose-window. Internally the Taylor touch is the crossing arches of voussoirs of alternating thickness – just as in certain Georgian door surrounds. And whereas this motif is used simply and straightforwardly in the arches of the S windows, in the crossing arches it is done in two orders. Inside the roof timbers start very low, and the church is made lighter by dormers in the roof.

ST TERESA (R.C.), Liverpool and Astley Roads. 1903 by Oswald Hill.

Risley

ATOMIC ENERGY AUTHORITY SITE. A Large area with a number of big blocks with curtain walls. 1956 etc. They are by T. L. Viney and R. S. Brocklesby. Two large, six-storeyed office blocks plus laboratories and a reactor.

Winwick

MYDDLETON HALL, 1m. E. Dated 1658, but the gables evidently C19. Brick. The front is symmetrical, with one recessed bay between two projecting bays. Mullioned-and-transomed windows.
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MYDDLETON HALL FARMHOUSE (Or Delph House). Dated 1657. Not symmetrical, with a little raised brick decoration.