Details
PRESTON
SD5229 WESTON STREET
941-1/6/288 (East side)
12/06/50 Church of St Walburge
GV I
Roman Catholic church. Begun 1850, opened 1854, tower
completed c.1857 and spire added 1867, all by J.A.Hansom; with
apse 1872, by Nichols of London. Coursed brown sandstone
rubble with lighter-coloured sandstone dressings, slate roof;
steeple of white limestone. Nave with short 3-sided apse and
very tall south steeple. The nave and apse are in C13 French
Gothic style, the steeple of C15 East Midlands type. The nave,
a very large single-cell vessel with steeply pitched roof, has
the entrance front at the west end: this has corner turrets
with pinnacles and 2 large buttresses framing a wide centre
and narrow outer bays, the centre containing coupled
trefoil-headed doorways with shafts under a 2-centred arch
moulded in 2 orders, the outer bays with cusped 2-centred
arched doorways; over the whole, an arcade of nine 2-centred
arched 2-light windows with shafts, quatrefoil heads and
linked hoodmoulds; a very large wheel window in the centre,
and spherical triangles with trefoil trecery in the outer
bays; and over the wheel window an arcade of 5 stepped lancet
lights. The 13-bay side walls have emphatic buttresses, and
tall attenuated 2-centred arched 3-light windows with slender
shafts and bar tracery quatrefoils in the heads; the 3-sided
full-height apse, in matching and accentuated style, has
full-height buttresses terminating in pinnacles, with
blind-arcading to the top stages, and very tall attenuated
windows with slender shafts and multifoils, with 3 lights in
the east end and 2 lights at the sides, all under relieving
arches. The tower (to the right of the 7th bay) is square in
plan and of 3 tall stages, elevated on an open base of large
2-centred arches, with angle-buttresses terminating in
pinnacles and a shaft in the centre of each side adding
vertical emphasis, 2 tall slender 2-light belfry windows in
each side, with shafts, cruciform tracery, and gablets with
pinnacles; and a very tall octagonal spire (reaching 314
feet), the base clasped by pinnacles and small arched flying
buttresses, with 2-light lucarnes in the cardinal sides.
INTERIOR: like a medieval hall, with a spectacular hammer-beam
roof which has painted statues on the hammer beams, arch
bracing and cusped tracery; corbelled canted wall-pulpit on
north side, with sounding board, and approached by
wall-staircase with 3 arched windows which have cusped
tracery; former organ loft in tower with large arched opening
and projected gallery; elaborate wooden west gallery (with
organ relocated from tower 1877); panelled dado, and windows
with geometrical-patterned stained glass (by Maycock); various
stained glass memorial windows at east end, by Hardman of
Birmingham and Mayer of Munich, including one to Henry Lord
Holland.
Listing NGR: SD5296029870
