Church of St John

SD3627 621-1/4/55

LYTHAM ST ANNES Lytham EAST BEACH, (north side) Church of St John

13/01/71

GV II* Church. 1848-49, by E.H. Shellard and among his best works; transepts added and chancel extended 1856-57 by the same architect; altered. Sandstone ashlar with Cumberland slate roof. Early English style. Narrow nave with wide north and south aisles, south-west steeple attached to south aisle, north and south transepts, chancel with south chapel and north vestry.

The four-stage tower, with clasping corner pilasters, a weathered band over the first stage, string-courses to the upper stages and a corbel table to the belfry, has a two-centred arched doorway with set-in shafts and a hoodmould with figured stops (king to left, bishop to right), and double doors with ornamental scrolled strap hinges; very small lancets to the second and third stages; two louvred lancet belfry windows; and a broach spire with lucarnes on two levels. The aisles have low buttressed side walls, sillbands and coupled lancet windows with linked hoodmoulds; the nave has a buttressed west end with two tall lancet windows, and a pilastered clerestory with small triple-lancets; the transepts have angle buttresses, three very narrow lancets and a circular window above (wheel in south, multifoil in north); the south chapel (formerly the choir vestry) has a war memorial plaque in place of a former south doorway, and lancet windows of one-, three- and one-lights; and the chancel has an east window of three stepped lancets with a sillband and linked hoodmoulds.

INTERIOR: six bay aisle arcades of double-chamfered two-centred arches on short cylindrical piers with moulded annular caps which include a dog-tooth band; roof of arch-braced collar trusses with wallposts rising from wall-shafts on figured corbels; similar roof to chancel, with curved windbraces to the purlins; former chancel screen removed to form baptistery at west end of north transept; box pews - quite unusual for the date - many with original doors and painted numbers (two at the rear of each aisle lettered "FREE"), and brass umbrella brackets; stone Gothic-style War Memorial dado in south chapel (with plaque recording that it was dedicated by William Temple, Bishop of Manchester, in 1921, the second year of his episcopacy).

HISTORY: site donated by Clifton family of Lytham Hall (q.v.), church built by public subscription.

Listing NGR: SD3711027151

This List entry has been amended to add sources for War Memorials Online and the War Memorials Register. These sources were not used in the compilation of this List entry but are added here as a guide for further reading, 16 August 2017.