Church of St Ambrose is a Grade II listed building in the Ribble Valley local planning authority area, England. First listed on 20 February 1984. Church. 1 related planning application.

Church of St Ambrose

WRENN ID
strange-rubblework-burdock
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
Ribble Valley
Constituency
Ribble Valley MP: Maya Ellis (Lab)
Country
England
Date first listed
20 February 1984
Type
Church
Address
Church of St Ambrose, Sawley Road, Grindleton, BB7 4QS
OS grid reference
SD 762 456
Coordinates
53.90624, -2.36334
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: related consents · flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Church of St. Ambrose is a church built in 1805 and enlarged in the 1890s, designed by Paley and Austin, although the planned steeple and porch were never completed. It is constructed from squared sandstone and has a slate roof. The building features a west tower and nave from 1805, a later chancel under a continuous roof, a north aisle with a pitched roof, and a south porch that is partly timber.

The slim west tower has a blank ground floor and a sill band beneath a lunette west window with a plain stone surround. The bell openings are also lunettes with a continuous sill band. The tower is topped with crude battlements made of stone blocks and has corner pinnacles. The south nave wall consists of three bays, with windows that have plain stone surrounds featuring a central square mullion that branches into a Y under a semi-circular head, complete with impost blocks and an impost band. The entrance door, located between the first and second bays, has a plain stone surround and is sheltered by a later 19th-century timbered porch.

The chancel, which is accessed beyond a buttress with offsets, has one bay on the south side. Its window consists of three lights with a pointed head, while the east window has four lights with pointed heads and segmental heads to the lights, along with tracery. The north aisle windows each have flat heads and two lights with segmental heads. The west nave window features two lights with reticulated tracery under a flat head.

Inside, there is a five-bay timber arcade supported by rectangular chamfered posts braced to an arcade plate. The roof timbers are exposed, with the nave showcasing main trusses that include a tie beam, a king post rising to an arch-braced collar, and short queen struts; the intermediate trusses only have arch-braced collars. The chancel contains double sedilia and a piscina. The east window features late 19th-century glass depicting the figures of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and there is a simple rood with the beam formed from one of the ties.

Local climate

Church of St Ambrose sits in one of the wettest parts of the UK, with an average of 1,310 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 95% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 92% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 49 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 90% of listed buildings. Of these, 26 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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  • No EPC on record for this property
  • No sale records on file
  • Related listed building consents — 1 application
  • Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
  • Flood risk assessment
  • Radon risk assessment
  • Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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