Church Of St Mark

Church of St Mark

The Church of St Mark stands close to Witton Park on the outskirts of Blackburn, in an area now associated with 20th-century housing. Built between 1836 and 1838 to designs by Edmund Sharpe (a pupil of the prolific architect Thomas Rickman), it is designed in the Romanesque style. Transepts and a north-east vestry were added later, around 1880, in matching style. The building is constructed in rusticated ashlar with hammer-dressed ashlar dressings and slate roofs.

The church has an unusual plan comprising a nave with a west porch, asymmetrical transepts (the south transept has its own west porch), a tower over the chancel, and a shallow sanctuary with a three-sided apse.

The exterior is characterised by pilasters, Lombardic friezes, and round-headed openings throughout. The wide west end features a shallow-pitched gable with clasping pilaster buttresses. This elevation is divided into bays and two tiers by pilasters and a string course, decorated with Lombardic friezes. The lower tier contains four round-headed windows and the upper tier six, with a roundel set in the gable. A gabled west porch in matching style has a roll-moulded outer doorway with nook shafts topped by waterleaf capitals.

The north and south sides are divided into tiers by a string course, with round-headed windows to each bay in the lower tier and round-headed arcading with small central round-headed windows in the upper tier. The tower has a square base decorated with pilasters and Lombardic friezes. Its upper stage becomes octagonal, with two tiers of gabled round-headed windows to each face and a short stone spire above. East of the tower sits a shallow bay, followed by the lower-roofed apsidal sanctuary with large lancet windows. The south transept has lancet windows and a gabled south end, while the north transept features a three-sided north end with all faces gabled. A north-east vestry abuts the tower, roofed on a west-east axis.

The interior contains tall, narrow round-headed tower arches at the east and west ends with plain imposts. The transepts have roll-moulded arches with semi-circular responds topped by volute capitals. The nave has a flat ceiling divided into panels with one large ornamental plaster roundel serving a ventilator. The transept roofs feature plaster vaults with timber ribs. A west gallery on cast iron columns has been screened from the main body of the church. The chancel screen is a pretty timber Gothic style piece serving as a World War I memorial.

Among the fittings is a polygonal timber pulpit with pierced friezes on a stone stem; a conical timber font cover; a font with a cylindrical stone bowl decorated with blind arcading on a cylindrical stem; and nave benches with concave shouldered ends and blind round-headed arcading to the frontal. The south transept benches are also Romanesque in style. The chancel floor is laid with encaustic tiles. The sanctuary contains an east window of 1838 by the outstanding stained glass artist William Willement. Good later Victorian stained glass appears in the transepts.

A photograph kept in the vestry documents the south side of the church before the south transept was added.

Edmund Sharpe, working in the mid-19th century, was an authority on Gothic architecture. His connection to this commission likely arose through his mentor Rickman, who had advised on the restoration of St Mary's Blackburn (now the Cathedral) following a fire in 1831. In 1838, the same year as St Mark's east window, Sharpe designed another Romanesque church at Christ Church, Chatburn. He entered partnership with E.G. Paley in 1845 (Paley having become his pupil in 1838) and retired in 1851.

This is a remarkably early and unusual example of a Romanesque style church, notable for its quirky plan and fine tower. The architectural historian Pevsner considered it "one of the most interesting churches in Blackburn". Later additions and fittings are sympathetic to the style of the original.