Description

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

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Church of St. Walburge, Preston at Wikipedia
• Church of St. Walburge, Preston official website
• Wikidata Q5117344

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)