Church Of St Saviour

The Church of St Saviour, built between 1864 and 1865 by Edward Wyndham Tarn, is a Grade II listed church located in Bacup. It is constructed of rock-faced sandstone and features a steeply-pitched slate roof adorned with bands of green fish-scale slates. The church is designed in the Gothic style and includes a nave with north and south aisles, a chancel with a polygonal apse, and a prominent north-east tower topped with a broach spire.

The nave and aisles have seven bays, with the aisles supported by short buttresses. Each bay contains two windows arranged in alternating pairs, either featuring two cusped lights with quatrefoils in the head or single cusped lights. The clerestory has coupled segmental pointed lights. At the west end of the north aisle, there is a gabled porch with a steeply-pitched roof and a moulded arch. The east end of the south aisle features a cross-gabled baptistery.

The west end of the church is buttressed and includes an arcade of recessed two-light windows arranged in groups of three, five, and three, with round windows above the outer groups. The centre features a large tripartite west window with two orders and shaft rings flanking lancets, and a large three-light centre with bar tracery in the head. The buttressed apse has a trefoil-pierced parapet and moulded lancets with bar tracery and trefoils in the heads.

Inside, the seven-bay nave arcade consists of slender polished columns with prominent moulded capitals, supporting double-chamfered two-centred arches. Wall shafts at clerestory level have moulded caps that support cusped bracing for the wagon roof. There is a west gallery that passes through the third bay of the arcade. The windows of the apse are linked by blind arcading that contains Commandment Tables, while similar blind arcading on the side walls of the baptistery features lettered panels. The east side commemorates John Holt of Stubbylee (1804-1836) and other family members, while the west side contains memorials for the 1914-1918 War. Beneath the floor at the east end is a font for baptism by immersion.