Church Of St Cuthbert

SOUTHPORT

SD3618NE ST CUTHBERT'S ROAD, Churchtown 664-1/7/291 (East side) 21/09/51 Church of St Cuthbert (Formerly Listed as: CHURCHTOWN Church of St Cuthbert)

GV II

Parish church. 1730-9, altered c1860, restored and partly rebuilt 1908-9 by Isaac Taylor. Coursed dressed sandstone and ashlar, slate roof. STYLE: Georgian. PLAN: nave with west steeple off-set south, chancel added 1908-9. EXTERIOR: the square 3-stage tower, with quoins, a plain band to the first stage and a moulded band to the second, a moulded cornice, pilastered parapet and octagonal spire with 3 moulded bands, has a pilastered round-headed west doorway with imposts and keystone (now blocked), a round-headed window to the second stage with wooden Y-tracery and round-headed louvred belfry windows with similar surrounds; on the south side of the second stage a clock-face with shouldered surround inscribed: 1739. In the north angle of the tower is a lean-to office. The south side of the nave has 4 plus 2 narrow bays (the latter formerly the chancel), with diagonal buttresses terminating in pinnacles, a gabled porch in the second bay (of 1909) and tall round-headed windows in the other bays, all with C20 round-arched tracery, and the bottom of each blocked with C20 masonry. The north side (rebuilt in early C20) has a large Venetian window in the centre (relocated E window of former chancel). INTERIOR: porch contains round-headed south doorway with inscriptions to left and right of the keystone: James Rimer Robert Ball Thomas Rimer Church Wardens and James Whitehead Rector 1730; single-vessel nave contains very unusual wooden aisle arcades with wide elliptical arches (of 1908-9), and a shallow west gallery in the same style, with spiral newel stairs; chancel contains fine carved wooden reredos by Richard Prescott in Grinling Gibbons style, being part of 1704 reredos from church of St Peter, Liverpool (demolished 1922), and communion rail from the same source; at south-east end are memorial tablets to Thomas Fleetwood (d.1717), and Roger Hesketh (d.1791) by Nollekens; and a hatchment. Principal element of group in centre of the village.

Listing NGR: SD3652618638