Church Of The Sacred Heart

The Church of the Sacred Heart, built in 1857 by Edward Welby Pugin and enlarged in 1894 by Pugin and Pugin, is a Grade II* listed building in Blackpool. This church is designed in the Decorated Gothic style and constructed from stone with slate roofs. It features a west tower with four stages, angled buttresses, battlemented coping, and tall corner pinnacles. The nave consists of four bays, with buttressed aisles and nave transepts, alongside an octagonal crossing that also has transepts and an octagonal lantern.

The aisle windows are composed of three lights, while the nave transepts boast a four-light window with geometrical tracery. The octagonal transepts display a large six-light window with reticulated tracery and a three-light gable eye with an archivolt. The octagonal crossing is topped with a pyramidal roof that supports a distinctive octagonal wooden lantern, featuring a pair of traceried windows on each side and a pyramidal copper roof with gablets on alternate sides.

Inside, the nave arcade is made up of moulded lancet arches resting on clustered marble columns. The unique crossing is defined by an octagonal arcade of moulded arches on shafted piers, with the lantern above supported by two tiers of hammerbeams in the angles. The upper tier supports an unglazed extension of the wooden lantern. The chancel has an arched ceiling adorned with painted and carved panels, large skylights, and a coved cornice with angel carvings. The chancel window consists of five lights with flowing tracery, and there is an elaborate carved reredos. Additionally, there are lady chapels in the salient on each side of the chancel. The octagonal pulpit is made of elaborately carved white marble and stands on a pedestal of short columns that alternate between black and red.