Church Of St Cuthbert

The Church of St Cuthbert is a parish church dating from 1730-9, with alterations around 1860, and a restoration and partial rebuilding in 1908-9 by Isaac Taylor. It is constructed of coursed dressed sandstone and ashlar, with a slate roof.

The church is of Georgian style, with a plan comprising a nave, a west steeple set to the south, and a chancel added in 1908-9. The square, three-stage tower features quoins, a plain band to the first stage, a moulded band to the second, a moulded cornice, a pilastered parapet, and an octagonal spire with three moulded bands. A pilastered round-headed west doorway, now blocked, has imposts and a keystone. A round-headed window to the second stage has wooden Y-tracery and round-headed, louvred belfry windows with similar surrounds. A clock-face with a shouldered surround inscribed with the date "1739" is located on the south side of the second stage. A lean-to office is situated in the north angle of the tower. The south side of the nave has four plus two narrow bays (formerly the chancel), with diagonal buttresses terminating in pinnacles, a gabled porch of 1909 in the second bay, and tall round-headed windows with 20th-century round-arched tracery, the lower sections of which are blocked with 20th-century masonry. The north side, rebuilt in the early 20th century, contains a large Venetian window (relocated from the former chancel’s east window).

Inside the porch is a round-headed south doorway. Inscriptions on the left and right of the keystone read: “James Rimer, Robert Ball, Thomas Rimer, Church Wardens, and James Whitehead, Rector, 1730”. The single-vessel nave contains unusual wooden aisle arcades with wide elliptical arches dating from 1908-9, and a shallow west gallery in the same style, with spiral newel stairs. The chancel incorporates a fine carved wooden reredos in the style of Grinling Gibbons, which originated as part of a 1704 reredos from the church of St Peter, Liverpool (demolished in 1922), and a communion rail from the same source. Memorial tablets to Thomas Fleetwood (died 1717) and Roger Hesketh (died 1791) by Nollekens are located at the south-east end, alongside a hatchment.

The church is the principal element of a group situated in the centre of the village.