Description

LANCASTER

SD4761NE NORTH ROAD
1685-1/7/217 (North side)
22/12/53 Church of St John

GV II*

Church. Consecrated 1755, west tower by Thomas Harrison added
1784, south porch added 1873, alterations c1920, vested in
Redundant Churches Fund 1983. Sandstone ashlar with slate
roof. Comprises a nave with semicircular apse, a west tower,
and a south porch.
The nave is of 5 bays and has projecting quoins, and a cornice
below a parapet with moulded coping. The tall windows have
architraves and semicircular heads with keystones and impost
blocks. On the north side the lower part of the west bay is
occupied by a door architrave with cornice and pulvinated
frieze; the window above, although with a higher sill, matches
the other nave windows. The doorway is now blocked and
contains a window. On the south side the east bay is similar,
but has doors with raised and fielded panels. In the west bay
is a single-storey porch in a matching style, with an
architrave, and a pediment which rises above a cornice. Above
is a round-headed window matching the others. The apse has 2
curved windows and is flanked by windows matching those of the
side walls. The west wall contains similar windows on each
side of the tower.
The tower is of 3 stages. The lowest stage has lunette windows
to north and south, with a rectangular window below on the
north. On the west side are doors of raised and fielded panels
in an architrave with pulvinated frieze and cornice. Above, a
tablet records that the tower was built from a legacy of
Thomas Bowes. The middle stage has clock faces on 3 sides the
western one in a moulded recess. The upper stage, above a
dentilled cornice, has rectangular louvred bell openings
within aedicules which have Tuscan pilasters, and pediments
rising from an upper cornice. The tower is capped by a rotunda
with rectangular openings between engaged Tuscan columns
carrying a curved entablature with triglyph frieze. Set back
behind this is a drum decorated with swags, carrying a stone
spirelet.
INTERIOR: on 3 sides there are galleries with fronts of oak
raised and fielded panels, carried on square panelled columns,
with Ionic columns rising at gallery level to support plaster
cornices, the ceiling between the cornices being curved
upwards as a barrel-vault. The central part of the west
gallery front breaks forwards with curved sides and is carried
on 2 timber fluted Doric columns. Below the front of the west
gallery a glazed screen has been added. The gallery is reached
by 2 staircases with turned newels and ramped handrails.
The east end of the church was re-ordered in the 1870s and
again in the 1920s, when a north chapel and south vestry were
created by removing the eastern bays of both galleries,
leaving the fronts running through, and putting plaster walls
pierced by lunettes within these bays at gallery level, and
walls of timber and glass at the lower level.
FITTINGS: the nave box pews are of oak and are arranged in 2
double rows. The 3rd and 4th pews from the front on the south
side were the Corporation Pew and are arranged as one with a
seat in the middle. The pews curve at the east end where the
central aisle widens, originally to allow space for the
pulpit, which was replaced by the present ironwork pulpit in
1875. The raised sanctuary area is also an alteration, but
turned mahogany communion rails survive from the original
scheme. The box pews were removed from the galleries during
the C20, but the west organ survives in its original mahogany
case. The original organ dated from 1785, but was rebuilt in
1868, replaced in 1898, and rebuilt in 1939 and 1992. Within
the tower the architrave and cornice of the original west nave
doorway can be seen. The clock mechanism, supplied by Bell and
Atkinson of Lancaster and dated 1886, occupies a glass case in
the middle stage.
STAINED GLASS: the apse wall is painted with the Ten
Commandments and the Creed, and its 2 windows contain glass of
c1870 with roundels depicting scenes from the life of Christ.
The north chapel contains 2 windows of c1895, probably by
Shrigley and Hunt.

Listing NGR: SD4778461907

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• St John the Evangelist's Church, Lancaster at Wikipedia
• St John the Evangelist's Church, Lancaster official website
• Wikidata Q7593784

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

• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)