Church of St John

The Church of St John is an 1848-49 church, the work of E.H. Shellard, considered among his finest achievements. Transepts were added, and the chancel extended in 1856-57, also by Shellard, with later alterations. The building is constructed of sandstone ashlar with a Cumberland slate roof and is in the Early English style. It comprises a nave, wide north and south aisles, a south-west steeple attached to the south aisle, north and south transepts, a chancel with a south chapel and a north vestry.

The four-stage tower features clasping corner pilasters, a weathered band above the first stage, string-courses to the upper stages, and a corbel table to the belfry. It has a two-centred arched doorway with set-in shafts and a hoodmould incorporating figured stops (a king to the left and a bishop to the right), along with double doors with ornamental scrolled strap hinges. The tower includes very small lancet windows on 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 the south transept, multifoil in the north). The south chapel, formerly a choir vestry, has a war memorial plaque where a former doorway once stood, and lancet windows of one, three, and one-lights. The chancel features an east window of three stepped lancets with a sillband and linked hoodmoulds.

The interior includes six bay aisle arcades of double-chamfered two-centred arches on short cylindrical piers with moulded annular caps, which incorporate a dog-tooth band. The roof is composed of arch-braced collar trusses with wallposts rising from wall-shafts on figured corbels. A similar roof extends into the chancel, with curved windbraces to the purlins. A former chancel screen was removed to create a baptistery at the west end of the north transept. Box pews, unusual for the date, remain, many with original doors and painted numbers (two at the rear of each aisle lettered “FREE”), along with brass umbrella brackets. A stone Gothic-style War Memorial dado is located in the south chapel, with a plaque recording its dedication by William Temple, Bishop of Manchester, in 1921, the second year of his episcopacy.

The site was donated by the Clifton family of Lytham Hall, and the church was built by public subscription.