Lancashire: Brief Historical and Descriptive Notes

by Leo H. Grindon

The history of Cartmel Church reads like a romance. The original building was of earlier date than the Conquest, but changes subsequently made bring it very considerably forwards—up indeed to the time of Edward III. It was then that the windows of the south aisle of the chancel were inserted, and painted as usual in that glorious art-epoch, as shown by the few portions which remain. Other portions of the coloured glass were probably brought from the priory when broken up by the unhallowed hands of Henry VIII., under whose rule the church was threatened with a similar fate, but spared, in answer to the cry of the parishioners, who were allowed to purchase it at an indulgent price, with the loss of the roof of the chancel. Thus laid open to the rain and snow, these were allowed to beat into it for eighty years, with results still plainly visible upon the woodwork. A partial restoration of the fabric was then effected, and within these last few years every part has been put in perfect order.

The ground-plan of this interesting old church is that of a Greek cross. The nave, sixty-four feet in length (Furness exceeding it by only a few inches), leads us through angular pillars, crowned with the plain abacus, to a choir of unusual proportionate magnitude; and here, in contrast to the pointed nave-arches, the form changes to round, while the faces are carved.

In one of the chapels to which the chancel-arches lead there is some fine perpendicular work. Similar windows occur in the transepts; and elsewhere there are examples of late decorated. The old priory-stalls, twenty-six in number, are preserved here, as at Whalley.

Externally, Cartmel Church presents one of the most curious architectural objects existing in Lancashire, the tower being placed diagonally to the body of the edifice, a square crossways upon a square, as if turned from its first and proper position half-way round. What particular object was in view, or what was the motive for this unprecedented deviation from the customary style of building,—a parallel to which, in point of the singularity, is found, perhaps, only in Wells Cathedral,—does not appear. We owe to it, however, four pillars of great beauty and strength, necessarily placed at the points of the intersection of the transepts.

The interior of the church is encrusted with fine monuments, many of them modern, but including a fair number that give pleasure to the antiquary. The most ancient belong to a tomb upon the north side of the altar, within a plain arch, and inscribed, upon an uninjured slab of gray marble, in Longobardic characters, Hic jacet Frator Willemus de Walton, Prior de Cartmel. Opposite this there will be found record of one of the celebrated old local family of Harrington—probably the Sir John who in 1305, when Edward I. was bound for Scotland, was summoned by that monarch to meet him at Carlisle. An effigy of the knight's lady lies abreast of that of the warrior; the arch above it is of pleasing open work, covered with the grotesque figures of which the monks were so fond.

Had exact annals been preserved of early church-building in Lancashire in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, they would tell most assuredly of many important foundations. The beginning of Eccles Church, near Manchester, on the west, is referred by the archæologists to about the year 1120, but probably it is one of the two mentioned in "Domesday Book" in connection with Manchester. The first distinct reference to Eccles occurs in the "Coucher Book" of Whalley Abbey, or about thirty years later than 1120. The Whalley monks held large estates both in Eccles and the neighbourhood, with granaries, etc.,—the modern "Monton" is probably a contraction of "Monks' Town," and the very name is thought to indicate a church settlement. Ecclesiastical relics of age quite, or nearly, corresponding are found also near Preston, especially in the tower and chancel near the church of Walton-le-Dale, the former of no great elevation, but very strong, buttressed and embattled. Placed in a skilfully chosen position on the crest of a little hill near the confluence of the Darwen with the Ribble, the aspect of the old place is distinctly picturesque; the site at the same moment explaining the local appellation of "Low Church,"—the Anglo-Saxon low or law denoting an isolated eminence, as in the case of Cheshire Werneth Low and Shuttlings Low. The date assigned to this ancient tower is 1162; to about thirty years after which time the oldest existing portions of Samlesbury, a few miles distant, appear to belong, the relics of the original here including the baptismal font. Didsbury Church, near Manchester, represents a chapel built about 1235, originally for the private use of the lord of the manor and a few families of local distinction, but a century afterwards made parochial.[42]

There are numerous indications also of ecclesiastical energy, if not of enthusiasm, temp. Edward III., to which period seem to belong the choir of Rochdale Church, with its rich window tracery, the choir, probably, of Burnley Church, and perhaps the older portions of Wigan Church. As happens with many others, the history of the last-named is very broken. A church existed at Wigan in 1246, but the larger portion of the present pile belongs to two centuries later. That it cannot be the original is proved by the monument to the memory of Sir William Bradshaigh and the unfortunate lady, his wife, the principal figure in the legend of Mab's, or Mabel's cross. The knight is cross-legged, in coat of mail, and in the act of unsheathing his sword; the lady is veiled, with hands uplifted and conjoined as if in prayer. The deaths of these two occurred about the time of the Flemish weavers' settling in Lancashire, and of Philippa's intercession for the burghers of Calais.

Manchester "old church," since 1847 the "Cathedral," was founded, as before stated, in 1422, the last year of Henry V. and first of Henry VI.—that unhappy sovereign whose fate reflects so dismally upon the history of Lancashire faithfulness. The site had previously been occupied by an edifice of timber, portions of which are thought to have been carried away and employed in the building of certain of the old halls for which the neighbourhood was long noted, the arms of the respective families (who, doubtless, were contributors to the cost of the new structure) being displayed in different parts. But there does not appear to be any genuine ground for the belief; and at a period when oak timber was so readily procurable as in the time of Henry VI., it is scarcely probable that men who could afford to build handsome halls for their abode would care to introduce second-hand material, unless in very small quantity, and then merely as commemorative of the occasion. Choice of a quarry by the builders of the new church was not in their power. They were constrained to use the red-brown friable sandstone of the immediate vicinity, still plainly visible here and there by the river-side. The exterior of the building has thus required no little care and cost to preserve, to say nothing of the injury done by the smoke of a manufacturing town. There was a time when Thoresby's quotation from the Canticles in reference to St. Peter's at Leeds would have been quite as appropriate in regard to the Manchester "Cathedral"—"I am black, but comely." The style of the building, with its square and pinnacled tower, 139 feet high, is the florid Gothic of the time of the west front and south porch of Gloucester. The interior, in its loftiness and elaborate fretwork, its well-schemed proportions and ample windows, excites the liveliest admiration. The chancel-screen is one for an artist to revel in; the tabernacle work is, if possible, more beautiful yet.

The second best of the old Lancashire ecclesiastical interiors belongs to Sefton, near Liverpool, a building of the time of Henry VIII., upon the site of a pre-Conquest church. The screen, which contains sixteen stalls, presents a choice example of carved work. There is also a fine carved-canopy over the pulpit, though time with the latter has been pitiless. Striking architectural details are also plentiful with, in addition, some remarkable monuments of Knights Templars with triangular shields. Sefton church is further distinguished as one of the few in Lancashire more than a hundred years old which possesses a spire, the favourite style of tower in the bygones having been the square, solid, and rather stunted—never in any degree comparable with the gems found in Somerset, or with the circular towers that give so much character to the churches of Norfolk and Suffolk. A very handsome octangular tower exists at Hornby, on the banks of the Lune, built about the middle of the sixteenth century. Winwick church, an ancient and far-seen edifice near Warrington, supplies another example of a spire; and at Ormskirk we have the odd conjunction of spire and square tower side by side. Leland makes no mention of the circumstance—one which could hardly have escaped his notice. The local tale which proposes to explain it may be dismissed. The probability is that the intention was to provide a place for the bells from Burscough Priory, some of the monuments belonging to which were also removed hither when the priory was dissolved.