Church Of St Nicholas With St John

The Church of St Nicholas with St John is a church dating from 1825, with a chancel added in 1897 by RB Preston. It stands on the site of earlier churches. The construction is in dressed sandstone. The church comprises a west tower, a seven-bay two-story nave, and a three-bay chancel.

The embattled three-stage tower features diagonal buttresses with gablets at the second stage, a moulded arched west doorway with a small niche above, a lozenge-shaped tablet lettered “GEO IV REX 1825” above the doorway, arched windows with hoodmoulds on both the west and south sides of the second stage, clockfaces above these, and belfry louvres at the top stage resembling the windows. A rectangular stair turret rises from the south-east corner, passing through the nave roof to the embattled parapet that has corner pinnacles. The nave, partially embracing the tower, has rusticated quoins and square windows with hoodmoulds, each featuring two arched lights with hollow chamfered mullions and surrounds and hollow spandrels. There is one such window on each floor of the west gable wall, seven on each floor at the sides, except for the ground floor of the first bay, which has an arched doorway on the south side and a rectangular doorway on the north. The chancel has clasping buttresses, set-back upper walls, two arched two-light windows to the south, three to the north side, and a transomed four-light east window.

Inside, there is a three-sided gallery with Gothic panelling to the front, supported by stout octagonal columns with splayed caps presumably from the second church of 1561. Slimmer octagonal columns support an arcade. Bow-string boarded aisle roofs have tie beams, moulded with embattled tops. The boarded barrel-vaulted nave roof features large moulded and embattled tie beams and queen posts. A high moulded chancel arch is present. The chancel has a hammerbeam roof, Gothic carved wooden panelling, canopied sedilia and a bishops throne, and very elaborate canopied choir stalls said to be copied from Whalley Abbey. Parts of former box pews, some with 18th-century dates and inscriptions, now form the dado of the aisles and the panelling of the vestry, with some of the latter dated 1708 and inscribed with the names of Churchwardens. The chancel arch contains a Rood originally from the Church of St. John, Bacup Road, Cloughfold. A carved datestone from the second building, bearing the initials of Elizabeth I, the date 1561, and the Royal Arms of England (including French fleur-de-lys) is set into the south wall of the porch in the tower.

The 1825 portions of the church are an unusual example of “self-build” by the parishioners without an architect, the water-shot coursing of the stone being more commonly associated with local farm buildings. The church's special atmosphere is enhanced by the rich fittings, especially within the later chancel.