The church was built in 1838–42, and designed by John Harper of York. The land for the church was given by the 13th Earl of Derby.[1] In 1898 the Lancaster architects Austin and Paley carried out work on the church, including removing the galleries, repairing the roof, and installing new choir stalls and a font.[2] On 1 November 1995 the church was declared redundant.[3] It was damaged by fire in 2004,[4] and has since been converted for residential use.[3][5]
Architecture
St Paul's is constructed in sandstone in 13th-century Gothic Revival style. Its plan consists of a nave with a clerestory, north and south aisles, a chancel and a west tower. The windows along the sides of the church, and in the tower, are lancets.[1] In the Buildings of England series, the authors describe the pinnacles on the tower as "like apologetic eyebrows".[4]
External features
The churchyard contains the war graves of thirteen soldiers of World War I and an airman of World War II. In 2006 a commemorative memorial erected by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission was temporarily stored away from the church until the conversion of the building into apartments was completed.[6]
^Brandwood, Geoff; Austin, Tim; Hughes, John; Price, James (2012), The Architecture of Sharpe, Paley and Austin, Swindon: English Heritage, p. 242, ISBN978-1-84802-049-8