Parish Church Of St Mary Magdalene

The Parish Church of St Mary Magdalene is a church with a 15th-century tower and east end. The remainder was rebuilt in 1828-29 by Thomas Rickman. The tower was heightened and a spire added in 1844, and a clerestorey was added in 1898 by Frederick Robinson.

The church is built of coursed rubble gritstone with freestone dressings and hammer-dressed buttresses, under a slate roof with clay ridge tiles.

The church has an aisled nave with a west tower, south-west vestry, and a short lower chancel with a south chapel and two-storey north vestry.

The Perpendicular four-stage west tower has angle buttresses in the lower two stages and a square south-east stair turret. The west doorway has two orders of continuous hollow chamfer and 19th-century ribbed doors. Above is a three-light window. The second stage has narrow square-headed windows and in the third stage, which was formerly the bell stage, are two-light windows. The mid-19th-century upper stage has deep chamfers to accommodate the octagonal angle turrets, which are carried above the embattled parapet. Round clock faces in square frames face the main directions. The stone spire has flying buttresses and lucarnes.

The six-bay nave has two-light square-headed clerestorey windows and an embattled parapet, with octagonal angle turrets over the east end. The aisles have plain parapets, buttresses with gable caps, two-light Decorated west windows and tall two-light transomed north and south windows with Decorated tracery. On the south side the fifth bay has a doorway in a projecting gabled surround, with continuous moulding and a ribbed door. In the corresponding bay on the north side is a doorway to a link to a late 20th-century vestry.

The chancel east wall is 15th century, with a diagonal south-east buttress, but the angle north buttress and five-light Perpendicular east window are mainly 19th-century fabric, as is the cusped window in the embattled gable. The south chapel has a blocked doorway and square-headed two-light east window. The two-storey north vestry has a similar blocked north doorway and two-light east window, below a triangular window with curved sides in the east wall.

The interior is impressively lofty and was designed to accommodate galleries in the aisles as part of the Georgian rebuilding, but the tall tower arch, with two orders of continuous chamfer, indicates that the previous church also had a tall nave. The nave arcades have tall octagonal piers and two-centred arches with linked hoods. The chancel arch is similar but rests on corbels. The nave roof of 1898 combines hammerbeams and arched braces, with arcading above. The aisles have tie-beam roofs on corbelled brackets, with arcading above the beams and boarded undersides. The chancel has a boarded keeled wagon roof and, in the south wall, a 14th- to 15th-century ogee-headed cusped piscina. The walls are plastered except for exposed masonry in the nave. The chancel has a stone-paved floor of around 1980.

North and south galleries are carried on cast-iron posts and segmental timber arches. The gallery front has blind arcading. Gallery stairs are in the aisles and have Gothic balustrades. Gallery benches have shaped ends with sunk quatrefoils and are probably of 1898. The nave and aisles have similar benches also said to be of 1898 (Rickman's plan of the church suggests that originally there were box pews). The plain octagonal font is said to be 17th century but is on a 20th-century base. Most of the other fixtures are later. The polygonal pulpit was brought here in 1979 from Darwen St John. The priests' stalls have ends incorporating poppy heads and linenfold panelling. 20th-century choir stalls by John Higson have moulded ends and fielded-panel backs incorporating some linenfold panels. The communion rail is on wrought-iron uprights with scrolled brackets.

There are several monuments reinstated from the old church. In the south chapel are damaged mid-15th-century effigies, said to be Sir Richard Radcliffe (died 1441) and his wife Catherine. Small brass inscription panels include memorials to John Webster (died 1682), astrologer, metallurgist and headmaster of the local grammar school, and John Harrison (died 1718) by F. Ainsworth. The latter was taken from a tomb chest, which is now used as an altar in the south aisle. In the chancel north wall is a hatchment and wall tablets to the Aspinall family, namely John Aspinall (died 1784), John Aspinall (died 1851) by the Westminster Marble Company, and John Aspinall (died 1865) by Poole & Sons of Westminster. On the south chancel wall is a Gothic wall tablet to Thomas Wilson (died 1813) by Richard Westmacott. The north aisle has a memorial with portrait bust to James Thomson (died 1851) by F. Webster of Kendal (the bust is possibly by Thomas Duckett of Preston), and Thomas Southwell (died 1796). In the north aisle is an alabaster 1914-18 war memorial with roll call in raised letters on cast metal panels. The east window of around 1828 has heraldic glass, possibly by James Hall Miller. There are fragments of medieval glass in tracery lights.

An earlier church was granted to the Priory of St John, Pontefract, in 1122. The principal surviving element is the west tower. The east end of the chancel, including a piscina, is also 14th to 15th century. The remainder was rebuilt by Thomas Rickman (1776-1841). Rickman entered the architectural profession in Liverpool and made his name in 1817 when he published the influential 'An Attempt to discriminate the Styles of Architecture in England'. His many churches are characterised by a combination of credible Gothic design and Georgian planning. He was in partnership with Henry Hutchinson (1800-31), with whom he designed his best-known secular work, the New Court with its Bridge of Sighs, at St John's College, Cambridge (1826-31). Clitheroe is typical of Rickman's work, and the style of the 1820s, in having a nave with aisles, but also galleries and a short chancel: this considerably enlarged the capacity of the church, in keeping with the town's expansion. An octagonal stage was added to the tower, with a spire, in 1844. The architect is not known but 'Mr Sutcliffe' is mentioned as a sculptor. The church was restored in 1898 when the nave clerestorey was added by Frederick Robinson (1833-92), architect of Derby, and new seating was installed. The south-aisle roof and gallery were partially reconstructed after a fire in 1979.