St Leonard's Church is in the village of Downham, Lancashire, England. It is an active

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

parish church in the diocese of Blackburn. The tower dates from the 15th century, and the rest of the church was rebuilt in 1909–10. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building.

History

The oldest part of the church is the west tower, which dates from the 15th century. The rest of the church was rebuilt in 1909–10, and was designed by Mervyn Macartney.

Architecture

Exterior

The church is built in sandstone with a

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

roof. Its plan consists of a nave and chancel under a continuous roof, a south chapel, a north organ chamber, a south aisle, a south porch, and a west tower. The tower has diagonal buttresses, and a west door with a moulded surround and a pointed head. Above it is a three-light window with a Tudor arched head. The window contains Perpendicular tracery. Above the windows the bell openings have two lights and pointed heads, and at the top of the tower is an

embattled A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...

parapet with corner

pinnacle A pinnacle is an architectural element originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. It was mainly ...

s and gargoyles. The windows of the south aisle have three lights, and the eastern

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...

is gabled. The parapet of the aisle is embattled. The outer and inner doors of the porch have

chamfer A chamfer or is a transitional edge between two faces of an object. Sometimes defined as a form of bevel, it is often created at a 45° angle between two adjoining right-angled faces. Chamfers are frequently used in machining, carpentry, fu ...

ed jambs and pointed arches. The east window has five lights and a Tudor arched head.

Interior

Inside the church the arcade between the nave and the aisle has three bays and pointed arches. The chancel arch is also pointed and is chamfered. The nave and chancel have barrel roofs. The

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

is in sandstone, it is octagonal in the style of the 16th century, and on its sides are shields. One shield is carved with the Legs of Man, another with a chevron and three fleur-de-lis, and the others are blank. In the church is a brass chandelier in

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

shape. The stained glass in the east window was given by Ralph and Richard Assheton of Downham Hall in 1869, and has been re-set by Shrigley and Hunt. Shrigley and Hunt also designed a window depicting Saint Leonard, and dating from the early 20th century. The monuments almost all commemorate members of the Assheton family, and include one by Richard Westmacott to Frances Arabella Assheton, who died in 1835. The two-

manual Manual may refer to: Instructions * User guide * Owner's manual * Instruction manual (gaming) * Online help Other uses * Manual (music), a keyboard, as for an organ * Manual (band) * Manual transmission * Manual, a bicycle technique similar to ...

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...

was built by

Forster and Andrews Forster and Andrews was a British organ building company between 1843 and 1924. The company was formed by James Alderson Forster (1818–1886) and Joseph King Andrews (1820–1896), who had been employees of the London organ builder J. C. Bisho ...

and moved here from Meols in 1909. There is a ring of five bells. Two of these date from about 1480 and were cast in London. The others were cast by John Taylor & Co, two in 1881 and the other in 1948.

Associated structures

In the churchyard is a

sundial A sundial is a horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word, it consists of a flat ...

dated 1808. It is in sandstone, and is octagonal on an octagonal base, with a sunken lancet panel on each side. The base and the cap are moulded, and on the top is an inscribed brass plate and a

gnomon A gnomon (; ) is the part of a sundial that casts a shadow. The term is used for a variety of purposes in mathematics and other fields. History A painted stick dating from 2300 BC that was excavated at the astronomical site of Taosi is the ol ...

, also in brass.

Appraisal

The church was designated as a Grade II* listed building on 13 February 1967, and on the same date the sundial was listed at Grade II. Grade II* is the middle of the three grades of listing, and is applied to "particularly important buildings of more than special interest", and Grade II, the lowest grade, is applied to buildings that "are of special interest". The architectural historians Hartwell and Pevsner comment in the '' Buildings in England'' series that "the church is unostentatious, with no surprises" and, of the interior, "the impression is of calmness and generosity of space".

Present day

St Leonard's is an active Anglican parish church in the

deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Norway. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residenc ...

of Whalley, the archdeaconry of Blackburn, and the diocese of Blackburn. Its

benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

is combined with that of

Christ Church, Chatburn Christ Church is in the village of Chatburn, Lancashire, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Whalley, the archdeaconry of Blackburn and the diocese of Blackburn. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List ...

. The church holds services on Sundays and Wednesdays.