Luddenden Foot United Reformed Church, The Manse And Chapel House

A Congregational chapel, now a United Reformed Church, with two associated houses, was built in 1859 for the Whitworth brothers, owners of a nearby mill. The building is constructed of coursed squared stone with ashlar dressings and a Welsh slate roof, and is designed in an Italianate style. The houses are incorporated as side bays. The main building is one storey high with a basement, comprising seven bays; the outer bays project forward, and the central bay projects even further, supporting a three-stage tower. The basement is faced with rock-faced stone and features segmental-arched windows with voussoirs. The ground floor has a cill band, impost band, an entablature with a triglyph frieze, a moulded cornice, and a blocking course; the outer bays have angle pilasters and corniced pediments. Each bay has a tall window with glazing bars, round-arched with archivolts on pilasters, with fielded panels between the sash and fanlight. The central bay has angle pilasters supporting the entablature, with two steps leading to a double panelled door with a fanlight in a Doric doorcase. The tower has an arched window to the first stage, a clock to each face of the second stage, angle consoles, a coursed arched opening, an impost band, a modillion cornice, and an ogee cap with a weather vane on the third stage. The rear of the building has projecting outer bays mirroring the front, incorporating tall basement doorways and basement windows with blind fanlights.

The Chapel House and The Manse, situated on the right and left returns respectively, are each two storeys high with a basement, and have four bays. These sections feature ground-floor plinths and angle pilasters, giant arched recesses with archivolts, impost bands, and two tiers of sashes with glazing bars. A cantilevered balcony leads to a door with a tall fanlight in the second bay of the Chapel House. A moulded cornice runs along the top of both houses. The basement of The Manse has a four-panel door in the second bay, alongside segmental-arched windows.

The interior of the chapel features a continuous moulded and enriched band aligned with the springing of the window arches, and an elaborately moulded cornice with dentils and paterae. Segmental vaulted plaster ceilings divide the three principal bays into panels with applied decoration. A pipe organ is positioned with an iron-railed singers' rostrum in front. Original box pews remain, alongside three original gasoliers that have been converted to electric lighting. A monument on the rear wall commemorates John Whitworth of Kirby Leas, Halifax, who died in 1861, and his wife, Mary Ward Whitworth, who died in 1887; it features seated female figures above an arched cornice, and was created by Patteson of Manchester.