Church Of St Silas

Church of St Silas, Preston New Road, Blackburn

Parish church built in 1894-1900 by Paley & Austin, with the tower added in 1913-14. The church is constructed of snecked and ashlar sandstone with freestone dressings and a slate roof.

The building is planned as an aisled nave with a south-west porch, west tower, chancel with north transept organ chamber, south transept chapel, south vestry positioned in the angle of the aisle and transept, and north vestry with boiler room.

The exterior is in free-Perpendicular style, presenting long but imposing proportions. The three-stage west tower features angle buttresses and a south-west polygonal stair turret, crowned with pierced battlements and pinnacles. The west doorway is set beneath a triangular head with strap hinges to the original doors, and above it rises a five-light west window. The second stage contains pairs of small cusped ogee-headed lights, with a clock and frieze of raised shields below the string course. The upper stage displays pairs of two-light openings with louvres, except on the south side where space for only one opening exists due to the turret. The six-bay buttressed aisles have large four-light windows and gabled buttresses set every second bay. The tall embattled porch is canted at the angles with diagonal buttresses and features a richly moulded entrance arch and iron gates, beneath a statue of St Silas in a niche surmounted by a pinnacle. The inner doorway carries a foliage frieze in the arch. The transepts have embattled parapets and pairs of square-headed two-light windows. The lower canted south vestry has a roof concealed by a freestone parapet and square-headed windows incorporating round-headed blind lights and cusped glazed lights, with a doorway showing continuous moulding and ribbed doors with strap hinges. The chancel features a parapet of blind quatrefoils, a south window similar to the transepts, and a seven-light east window. A south-east polygonal turret under a spirelet provides asymmetrical accent.

The interior has lofty proportions with a triple-chamfered tower arch, double-chamfered chancel arch, and double-chamfered nave arches on Perpendicular square piers set diagonally. The transepts have similar arches. The nave and chancel feature open arched-brace roofs on corbels, except for a boarded ceilure over the sanctuary. Round-headed sedilia and piscina with continuous mouldings are present. Screens conceal service rooms inserted at the west end in the 1990s. The walls are exposed red-sandstone ashlar, contrasting with the yellow exterior stone. The floor is stone-paved except for wood-block floors below the pews and glazed relief tiles in the sanctuary.

The church is richly furnished in high-church fashion. The font, dated 1896, is a single octagonal piece with buttresses and blind tracery, topped by an early 20th-century tall Gothic wooden canopy. Benches have moulded ends with armrests and panelled backs. Churchwardens' pews feature ends with blind tracery and finials. The Runcorn stone pulpit, dated 1896 and made by Dent & Marshall of Blackburn, is square with blind tracery, a statue niche at the angle, and stands on a square pedestal with attached shafts. Screens at the west end of the nave (1918) and to the south chapel (1950) are in late-medieval style. The chancel contains choir and priest's stalls with blind tracery ends and diamond and circle finials, and frontals with blind tracery. Communion rails have brass balusters and iron gates, as well as a wooden rail and posts with Gothic detail. The alabaster reredos, imported from Italy in 1915, has figure panels in relief below canopies and outer canopied niches incorporating superimposed statues, flanked by alabaster blind arcading. Stained-glass windows include two by Morris & Co, one of which is by J.H. Dearle (1908), and one by Henry Holiday (1921-23).

The church developed from a Sunday School built in 1834 to serve the village community outside Blackburn, where services were held from 1846. A new school was built in 1884-85, where services continued until the parish church was constructed alongside. The design was drawn up in 1878, though the building work took place mainly in 1894-1900. The tower was added in 1913-14. Paley & Austin of Lancaster formed the most successful 19th-century church-building architectural practice in north-west England, noted for creative handling of space and line, often employing Perpendicular style as seen at St Silas. The church is estimated to have cost £9,584.