Church of St Hubert, Bowland Forest High, Lancashire

Summary

Roman Catholic church, associated boundary wall, gate piers and lychgate, 1865 from designs by E W Pugin and J Murray. Early English Gothic Revival style. The attached linking block and presbytery are not included in the listing.

Description

Roman Catholic church, associated boundary wall, gate piers and lychgate, 1865 from designs by E W Pugin and J Murray. Early English Gothic Revival style.

MATERIALS: local sandstone; green and grey slate roofs.

PLAN: the church is oriented NW to SE but conventional liturgical orientations are used. The nave is aisleless with a NW porch and a sacristy to the S side. The boundary wall is set to the NE.

EXTERIOR: the church is situated outside the small village of Dunsop Bridge in a rural location and is set within a graveyard. All windows are lancets with plain hood moulds and projecting stone sills, and there is a tall chamfered plinth to all elevations. The apsidal sanctuary has lancets alternating with stepped buttresses and a semi-dome roof surmounted by an iron finial. The three-bay nave has buttresses to its E corners. At the NW corner there is a buttressed porch with a half-hipped roof and a full-height pointed-arched entrance and hood mould. The church has a pitched roof with a large stone cross finial. There is a projecting sacristy to the S with a half-hipped roof and a buttressed S end with a plain window to either side. The W end has triple lancets above a continuous sill band and a single bellcote at the apex. The roofs are of alternating grey and green slate, but have lost the original decorative ridge tiles. The sacristy is included but the attached presbytery and linking block are not included in the listing.

INTERIOR: the apsidal E end is vaulted and has marble-clad lower walls with slender marble engaged columns carrying the ribs of the apse. The sanctuary is richly decorated with painted and stencil decoration, including a depiction of the horse Kettledrum, upon whose Derby winnings the church is said to have been built. The sanctuary floor has encaustic tiles with fleur de lys and other motifs, and the original altar is retained. The latter has marble columns with floriated caps and a polished granite frontal with a central panel of the Virgin Mary flanked by kneeling figures of St Hubert and a bishop. The walls to either side of the sanctuary are richly coloured and contain trefoil-headed recesses, housing statues of the Virgin Mary and St Joseph. The E window by J B Capronnier of Brussels (1865) comprises three lancets with the Virgin and Child in the centre, St Anne to the left and St Veronica to the right. The nave has plastered and plainly painted walls with a boarded dado and retains its original benches with shaped and chamfered ends. It contains further stained glass windows and memorials to various members of the Towneley Family and others. A segmental-headed doorway leads to the full-height sacristy with original fittings. The three-light W window also by Capronnier, has St Hubert and stag in the central light, and Saints Peter and Paul to the left and right. A stone stoup adjacent to the W door is thought to be medieval in origin and was brought from a church at Burholme. There is a segmental-arched doorway to the NW porch. The arch-braced roof of the nave also has painted and stencilled decoration.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: to the NE of the church is a stepped boundary wall of local sandstone with double-chamfered coping stones and set with original, ornate railings with cross finials. There is a pedestrian entrance through the wall with a timber, hipped roof lychgate, and at either end wider entrances have plain piers with gableted caps and identical piers terminating each end of the wall. These structures contribute to the special interest of the principal building and are included in the listing.

History

From the early C19 until the construction of this church in 1865, Mass was said in the family chapel of Colonel Charles Townley at Thorneyholme Hall. It is said that the new Church of St Hubert was built on the proceeds of winnings in the Epsom Derby of 1861, by Colonel Townley’s horse Kettledrum. Townley was a keen huntsman and the church is dedicated to St Hubert, patron saint of hunters. The architects were E W Pugin and James Murray. The church seated 100 and cost £700 to construct and was opened on 2 May 1865 by Bishop Richard Roskell of Nottingham. The stained glass of the apse and the east and west windows is by Jean-Baptiste Capronnier of Brussels. In its early years the church doubled during the week as a school, until a separate school was constructed nearby. The wrought-iron forward altar, lectern, candle stand and sanctuary lamp were made in 1993. When built, the church lay in West Yorkshire and the Diocese of Leeds, and was served by Jesuit priests from Stoneyhurst. In 1974 the parish became part of Lancashire and in 1988 the church was transferred to the Diocese of Salford. The churchyard has a memorial to the Townleys and is also the burial place of Bishop Roskell.

Edward Welby Pugin (1834-75) took over his father A W N Pugin’s practice in 1852 and was briefly in partnership with James Murray (1831-63) between 1856 and c1859. Pugin and Pugin and Murray designed several Catholic churches for the Diocese of Salford, of which several are listed. As an architect, while E W Pugin was less important than his father, his style and plans became the norm for Roman Catholic churches in the British Isles in the second half of the C19. Jean-Baptiste Capronnier of Brussels (1814-91) was a stained glass painter associated with the modern revival of stained glass painting. He is one of the most admired glass makers of the C19. He undertook a number of commissions in Brussels and also in France, Italy and England. At the Paris exhibition of 1855 he won the only medal given for glass painting.

Reasons for Listing

The Roman Catholic Church of St Hubert with boundary wall, gate piers and lychgate, 1865 by E W Pugin with James Murray is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* Architect: a good example of the work of E W Pugin, whose style and plans became the norm for Roman Catholic churches in the second half of the C19;
* Design interest: an attractive mid-C19 rural church with a little-altered design in Early English style;
* Decorative quality: lavish polychrome east end, richly decorated with marble and painted and stencil decoration;
* Fixtures and fittings: good quality original fittings including a well-detailed marble and granite altar and stained glass by Capronnier of Brussels, one of the most admired C19 glass makers;

Historic interest:

* Patronage: unusual patronage based on the 1861 Derby winnings of the racehorse Kettledrum, an association reinforced by a depiction of the horse in the polychrome sanctuary.

External Links

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