Church Of St Catherine

797-1/0/10011 RICHMOND STREET 09-MAY-03 Horwich Church of St Catherine

II

Church. 1902 and 1932. By Frank Freeman of R.Knill Freeman. Red brick with stone dressings and slate roofs with coped gables with finials. Perpendicular style with buttresses, some with set-offs. Chancel and nave in one with north chapel, south transept, south vestry, aisles and south west porch. East end has 5-light window with blank north wall to chancel. 3-light window to east end of north chapel with 3-light windows to north. Paired 2-light windows to clerestory and 5-light windows under wide Tudor arches to aisles below. South vestry has 3-light windows to east and door to south adjoining the south transept which has a 3-light window over a pair of 3-light windows similar to those in the vestry. Corbelled-out bellcote at gable apex. The south porch has a battlemented parapet and low pyramidal roof and small lancet windows. 7-light west window. INTERIOR. Chancel has boarded hammerbeam roof, carved reredos and altar front and fine and unusual set of choir stalls and communion rails in art nouveau style. Stained glass in east window. Elaborately carved pulpit and lectern, the latter having the very unusual iconography of a pelican standing on her nest feeding her young. Boarded nave roof with tie beam trusses. Nave recently partitioned at halfway but glazed upper part maintains view to west window. West end panelling contains 2 large and extremely fine glazed faience panels, a memorial to Catherine Ainsworth, one showing the flower garden at the Ainsworth home, the other a scene of fire and destruction. Various windows have panels of stained glass. This church, which is especially notable for its unusual fittings, was the result of 2 building phases, both designed by Frank Freeman. The foundation stone was laid in 1897 and the nave was built in 1902. The chancel remained unfinished although there survives a project drawing for completion of 1905. This was not followed but another one produced in 1931, this one complete with chapel, organ chamber and vestry. The church was finished the following year.