Palatine Hall

LANCASTER

SD4761NE DALTON SQUARE 1685-1/7/98 (North side) 16/05/89 No.2 and Palatine Hall

GV II

Roman Catholic church with attached presbytery to the left, later public hall, music hall, cinema, and now council offices. 1798-1799, altered 1859 and extensively remodelled internally in 1983. Probably by Robert Roper. Sandstone ashlar, with sides and rear of coursed dressed sandstone with a plinth, quoins and dressings of ashlar. The roofs are of slightly different pitches, with Welsh slate to the left on No.2 and Cumbrian slate on Palatine Hall, and there is a large chimney stack above the party wall between the premises. The roof of Palatine Hall is hipped and has a square louvred ventilator on the ridge. No.2 has a double-depth plan, while what was the church has a single-span roof and runs back from the square. 3 storeys above a cellar, and 6 bays with an eaves cornice which continues around and along Friar Street. Originally the facade was formed by an almost matching pair of 3-bay elevations with central doorways (though the bays of the church are slightly wider, and most if not all of its openings were blind). All the openings now have plain reveals. The doorway of No.2 has a cornice on consoles, while Palatine Hall has a wide single-storey flat-roofed porch of 1859 with clasping Tuscan pilasters, a frieze inscribed 'PALATINE HALL' and a moulded cornice. The panelled doors of both parts are recent. The side elevation to Friar Street has, in the first bay which is marked off by plain raised quoins, a large Venetian window with a plain surround and keystone, which originally lit the sanctuary of the church. To the right are 3 taller, similarly detailed round-headed windows linked by a band at impost level; above and to the right of each of these is a small oval window inserted in 1983 to light the top floor of the office. On the far right is a late C19 doorway with ovolo-moulded jambs between rusticated strip pilasters. INTERIOR: the conversion in 1983 involved a cleverly contrived split-level scheme to take advantage of the fall of the site to the north of the Square. This retained all, and exposed 6, of the trusses of the roof. Each truss has 5 queen posts, shaped as columns with moulded bases and caps. These carry brackets supporting moulded collars and longitudinal beams. HISTORY: the church was built as the first publicly visible Roman Catholic church in the town, after the Catholic Relief Act of 1778, and was in use until 1859, when it was superseded by St Peter's Church, St Peter's Road, now the Cathedral (qv). After 1859 the building became a public hall, a music hall and, lastly, a cinema.

Listing NGR: SD4788061680