Church Of St Catherine

WIGAN

SD50NE LORNE STREET 24-1/2/31 Church of St Catherine 11/07/83

II

Church. 1840, by Edmund Sharpe of Lancaster. Coursed squared sandstone, slate roof. Gothick Early English. PLAN: nave and aisles in one vessel, with south vestry, short chancel, west steeple linked to nave by short narthex with stair-turrets in angles. EXTERIOR: square 2-stage tower with gabled sides, angle-buttresses and corner pinnacles, mediated to a tall octagonal belfry also with gabled sides, carrying a tall octagonal spire with lucarnes on 2 levels: the tower has a 2-centred arched west doorway with deep moulded surround and hood-mould, and stepped triple-lancet windows in each side of the upper stage with metal clock-faces in the gables over them; the belfry has slender angle buttresses, a narrow lancet in each side with a blind multifoil in the gable above, and finials to the gables of the cardinal sides. The stair-turrets have angle-buttresses carried up to pinnacles, and a lancet in each side. The 6-bay aisles, with small buttresses and parapets with ridged coping, have a pair of lancets in each bay; the south aisle has a low vestry to the 6th bay with arched doorway and windows, and hipped roof. The chancel has a stepped triple-lancet east window. All windows have hood-moulds with small foliated stops. INTERIOR: single vessel with short sanctuary; trefoil-panelled galleries on 3 sides carried on cast-iron columns, organ on west gallery; box pews (removed from west end which is now partitioned off by glazed screen); queen-strut roof with wrought-iron straps; octagonal pulpit on unusually high slender pedestal; panelled Gothic-style war memorial at west end dated 1922. Forms group with boundary wall of churchyard (qv), and with St Catherine's vicarage to south (qv).

Listing NGR: SD5922405689

This List entry has been amended to add the source for War Memorials Register. This source was not used in the compilation of this List entry but is added here as a guide for further reading, 16 August 2017.