The church replaced an earlier chapel in the town of Garstang, and was built in 1857–58. The church and associated
presbytery, schools and schoolmaster's house were designed by the
Lancaster architect
E. G. Paley.[2][3][4][5] The church had seating for 600 people. The full development cost £7,000 (equivalent to £890,000 in 2023).[5][6] The authors of the Buildings of England series comment that the church is a "big solid job", and that it is "by far the largest and most imposing [church] of the town".[4]
Architecture
Exterior
The church is constructed in
sandstonerubble and has
slate roofs. Its plan consists of a five-
baynave and a
chancel under a continuous roof, a north
aisle with a
Lady chapel at the east end, a north porch, and a west tower. The tower is in three stages, with diagonal
buttresses, an
embattledparapet, and a stair
turret rising to a greater height than the tower and surmounted by a spirelet. On its west front is an arched doorway and a three-light window. The windows along the sides of the church have two lights, and are separated by buttresses. At the east end of the chapel is a two-light window, and the east window of the chancel has five lights. The chancel roof contains a
dormer window on each side.[2][4]
Interior
The arcade consists of pointed arches carried on round columns with
capitals. At the west end is a gallery. The nave has an open timber roof, and the chancel a
barrel roof.[2] The large
reredos is in
Caen stone, and is decorated with arcading. The altar and the altar rail both have
marble shafts. At the entry to the
sacristy is a
stoup incorporating a stone inscribed with the date 1639. The stained glass dates from the later part of the 19th century, and was probably made by
Hardman.[4] The two-
manual organ in the west gallery was made in 1949 by Henry Ainscough and Company of
Preston. It was designed by Dr J. Reginald Dixon of
Lancaster Cathedral, who also designed the organ case. The organ was restored in 1989 by the Pendlebury Organ Company of
Fleetwood.[7]
^Price, James (1998), Sharpe, Paley and Austin: A Lancaster Architectural Practice 1836–1942, Lancaster: Centre for North-West Regional Studies, p. 73,
ISBN1-86220-054-8
^
abBrandwood, Geoff; Austin, Tim; Hughes, John; Price, James (2012), The Architecture of Sharpe, Paley and Austin, Swindon:
English Heritage, p. 218,
ISBN978-1-84802-049-8