Details
PRESTON
SD5429SW CHURCH STREET
941-1/12/81 (South side)
27/09/79 Church of St John the Divine
GV II*
Parish church. 1853-55, by E.H.Shellard; altered. Sandstone
ashlar (now emphatically pointed), slate roofs. Nave with
north and south aisles, west steeple with porch on north side,
chancel with north organ-house and south chapel, and vestry
attached to chapel. Decorated style, with reticulated tracery
in 2-centred arched windows which have hoodmoulds with figured
stops, and numerous crocketed pinnacles. The tall 3-stage
tower has a moulded plinth and string course, set-back
buttresses, a small 2-light west window, a cusped lancet to
the 2nd stage and large diamond clock-faces on the north and
south sides, a belfry stage with 2 windows in each side, all
with stone louvres and crocketed gablets, a cornice with
prominent gargoyles, and a parapet with corner pinnacles
linked by short flying buttresses to smaller pinnacles
clasping the spire; the tall octagonal spire has 2-light
gableted lucarnes at the base and small lucarnes on 2 levels
above. On the north side of the tower, an elaborate 2-storey
gabled porch which has a doorway moulded in 2 orders under a
hoodmould with large angel stops and a crocketed gablet
containing mouchettes, flanked by crocketed niches, and at 1st
floor a 2-light window flanked by cusped blind windows. The
nave, of 5 bays plus a half-bay at the east end, has
buttresses finished as pinnacles on the parapet, a pair of
2-light clerestory windows in each full bay and one in the
half-bay, and octagonal pinnacles at the east end; the aisles
have buttresses finished as gablets, and large 3-light windows
with tracery in alternating patterns, and the western bay of
the south aisle has a cusped doorway. The 3-bay chancel has
diagonal buttresses at the east end finished with pinnacles, a
large 5-light east window, a 3-light window on the north side,
and a parapet with zig-zag open-work; attached in parallel on
the north side of the chancel, a tall 2-bay organ house which
has 3-light windows in the north side, a large 4-light east
window, a similar parapet and corner pinnacles, and a
steeply-pitched roof; and the 3-bay south chapel, coupled with
the south side of the chancel, has buttresses, a 4-light east
window, and 3-light windows in the south side mostly obscured
by the parallel vestry (which has a doorway at the west end, a
traceried 3-light window at the east end, and coupled lancets
in the side).
INTERIOR: five-and-a-half bay aisle arcades of quatrefoil
piers with nobbly leaf capitals carrying 2-centred arches
moulded in 2 orders, with hoodmoulds linked by figured stops,
the arches of the half-bay dying into the chanel wall; chancel
arch and 3-bay arcades in similar style, but with moulded
annular caps to the columns and 3 orders of moulding to the
arches, and a clerestory of 4+4 cusped lights to the organ
house; hammer-beam roofs to both nave and chancel; gallery at
west end of nave, carried on large timber girders with
mouchette tracery, with cusped blind arcaded panelling to the
front (formerly similar galleries in aisles removed in 1960s,
leaving only the corbels on the piers). Monuments include a
wall tablet to Dame Mary Hoghton (d.1719/20) in the chancel
and 3 monumental slabs to other members of Hoghton family at
the east end of nave (1719/20, 1768, 1772); in the chapel
there is a large wall monument to the Rev.Roger Carus Wilson
(d.1839) elaborately carved in Gothic style including reliefs
of 5 Preston churches built during his incumbency; in the
tower there is a Gothic tomb-recess to Thomas Starkie
Shuttleworth (d.1819) and others to various civic dignitaries.
Listing NGR: SD5419729358
