The church was built in 1880–81. The architects were the Lancaster partnership of Paley and Austin.[3] It replaced an earlier chapel built in 1757. The new church cost £2,500 (equivalent to £320,000 as of 2023),[4][5] The foundation stone was laid on 25 June 1880, and the church was consecrated on 9 August 1881. The vicar of the church between 1913 and 1918 was Rev Theodore Bayley Hardy.[6] As chaplain to the British Army, Hardy was the most decorated non-combatant in the First World War, receiving the Victoria Cross, the Distinguished Service Order, and the Military Cross for the assistance he gave to the wounded.[7]
Architecture
St John's is constructed in stone with ashlar dressings, and has a slate roof.[3] Its architectural style is Perpendicular.[8] Its plan consists of a two-baynave, a north aisle, a chancel with an organ loft and vestry to the north, and a southwest tower incorporating a porch. The tower has a stair turret on its southwest corner and a buttress at the southeast corner. In its top stage are two-light bell openings with louvres. The parapet is embattled, and on the summit of the tower is a pyramidal roof with a weathervane carrying the date 1881. The entrance to the church is on the south of the tower. Inside the church there is a four-bay arcade. In the vestry are two stones from an earlier church, one dated 1616 and the other 1757.[3] The stained glass in the west window, dated 1880, is by Shrigley and Hunt. Elsewhere there is glass by Heaton, Butler and Bayne.[9]
^Brandwood, Geoff; Austin, Tim; Hughes, John; Price, James (2012), The Architecture of Sharpe, Paley and Austin, Swindon: English Heritage, p. 232, ISBN978-1-84802-049-8
^Price, James (1998), Sharpe, Paley and Austin: A Lancaster Architectural Practice 1836–1942, Lancaster: Centre for North-West Regional Studies, p. 83, ISBN1-86220-054-8
