Church Of St Wilfred

Church of St Wilfred, Davenham

This is a Gothic Revival church built between 1844 and 1870, designed by Edmund Sharpe, probably in conjunction with E.G. Paley. It is constructed of red sandstone ashlar with a slate roof.

The church comprises a nave with aisles and transepts, a chancel, a south-western porch, a north-eastern vestry, and a south-eastern chantry chapel. The dominant feature is a west tower, built in 1844.

The tower's western front has angle buttresses and a moulded plinth. At its centre are double doors set in a pointed arch with moulded surround and hood mould. The hood mould terminates in figurehead label stops and a keystone carved with a winged angel in high relief. A string course rises above to accommodate the arch, with a further string course immediately below a four-light traceried window featuring cusped lights and three quatrefoils. Above this sits a later circular painted clock face, with string courses above and below. A two-light louvred traceried belfry opening rises above, topped by a plain parapet with two animal gargoyles. An octagonal spire rises above, set back with three tiers of lucarnes on the north, south, east and west faces. The south face features a semi-octagonal staircase turret at the left in place of an angle buttress. Below the spire is a store room with two two-light cusped windows with trefoils at the apexes and hood moulds with label stops. Above the windows is a gabled opening containing a wrought-iron open clock face set over a window with a shallow two-centred arch and flamboyant tracery. The belfry opening, parapet and gargoyles match those on the west. The north face has a lean-to outshut to the lower wall with a double door at the left and single door to the right. Above is a shallow-arched window with flamboyant tracery similar to the south face but without a clock face. The belfry opening, parapet and gargoyles match the other fronts.

The nave's south face has five bays. A gabled late 19th-century porch projects from the left, featuring a moulded arch and hood mould with label stops. Two-light unglazed windows flank the porch opening, cusped with trefoils at the apexes. To the right of the porch are two aisle windows, each of three cusped lights with cusped trefoils above and buttresses between. The transept to the right has two similar windows with a buttress between and a rose window to its gable. Two-light windows open to the transept's left and right hand reveals. Clerestory windows consist of two lights each with trefoils over, beneath a plain parapet with moulded chamfered coping. The north front is similar but lacks the porch.

The chancel's south front comprises three bays of three-light traceried windows. Its eastern return has a door and a two-light traceried window. Three and two-light chancel windows open to the left and right respectively, with buttresses between and at the angles. The north face is similar, with a vestry of two heights occupying the re-entrant angle between the chancel and transept. A two-light northern window has a gable above. The eastern front's left hand section has a two-light window at mezzanine level with a door to its right and a two-flue chimney stack to the right hand gable. A lower portion to the right has a two-light window. The east end features a five-light traceried window at the centre with cusped lights, hood mould and label stops, topped by a cross rising to the apex.

The interior has a vaulted ceiling to the tower, which features three deeply chamfered reveals extending uninterrupted from base to apex. The nave arcade has hexagonal shafts with moulded bases and capitals. The arches carry ovolo mouldings with a fillet to the centre of the intrados, and hood moulds above with shared label stops carved as angels bearing musical instruments or in prayer. The clerestory windows have pillars to their sides. The nave roof comprises alternating arched braces and trusses formed of arched braces rising to a thin turned tie beam supporting further arched braces, with boarding beyond. The transepts have similar roofs. The chancel arch is moulded with colonettes and moulded vine-trail decoration. Two arched sedilia occupy the eastern end of the right-hand wall, connecting with a blind arcade of six arches to the eastern wall (three to either side of a projecting reredos). The reredos contains an alabaster relief of the Last Supper. The ceiling is boarded. Stained glass dates to around 1870.

The war memorial in the south nave aisle was designed by Sir Robert Lorimer around 1919. It features tall spiral-moulded wooden corner posts carrying figures of praying angels. Low screens divide the memorial from the aisle seating, with linen-fold moulding and open vine-trail moulding to the top. An alabaster tablet on the southern wall is inscribed with the names of the dead. Below this are six panels: the central two are glazed and contain a book of remembrance, while the four flanking panels hold relief carvings of figures representing Courage, Gentleness, Charity and Justice, each beneath moulded ogee canopies.