St Mark's Church is in Buncer Lane, in the former parish of Witton,

Blackburn Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and north-n ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, England. It is a redundant

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 ...

church in the deanery of Blackburn with Darwen, the archdeaconry of Blackburn, and the

diocese of Blackburn The Diocese of Blackburn is a Church of England diocese, covering much of Lancashire, created on 12 November 1926 from part of the Diocese of Manchester. The diocese includes the towns of Blackburn, Blackpool and Burnley, the cities of Lancas ...

. It was put up for sale in 2018. Originally a separate parish, in 2005 it combined with the parish of St Luke with St Philip to form the Parish of Christ the King. The church is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, an ...

as a designated Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

St Mark's is one of the oldest churches in the Blackburn diocese, and was founded by the Feilden family, the largest landowners in Blackburn at the time. Joseph Feilden gave the land for the church, contributed £200 towards its building and gave £50 for the stained glass windows. The church was built in 1836–38 to a Romanesque design by the Lancaster architect

Edmund Sharpe Edmund Sharpe (31 October 1809 – 8 May 1877) was an English architect, architectural historian, railway engineer, and sanitary reformer. Born in Knutsford, Cheshire, he was educated first by his parents and then at schools locally and in ...

. It was Sharpe's first commission, and one of his early churches in Romanesque style. In gaining the commission, he was helped by his older cousin Revd J. W. Whitaker, vicar of Blackburn, who was related by marriage to the Feilden family. The total cost of the church was £1,700 (equivalent to £ in ). In addition to the donations from Feilden, two grants were received; £400 from the Chester Diocesan Society for Building Churches, and £300 from the Incorporated Church Building Society. The new church seated a congregation of 669. The foundation stone was laid on 10 October 1836 by Joseph Feilden, and the church was

consecrated Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different grou ...

on 10 June 1838 by Rt Revd John Bird Sumner,

bishop of Chester The Bishop of Chester is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chester in the Province of York. The diocese extends across most of the historic county boundaries of Cheshire, including the Wirral Peninsula and has its see in the C ...

, although it may have been finished before the latter date. In 1870 the south

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building withi ...

was added. This was designed by Sharpe's successor in the practice, E. G. Paley, to serve as a

mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be consid ...

for the Feilden family. Between 1881 and 1887 the church was

restored ''Restored'' is the fourth studio album by American contemporary Christian music musician Jeremy Camp. It was released on November 16, 2004 by BEC Recordings. Track listing Standard release Enhanced edition Deluxe gold edition Standard ...

Paley and Austin Sharpe, Paley and Austin are the surnames of architects who practised in Lancaster, Lancashire, England, between 1835 and 1946, working either alone or in partnership. The full names of the principals in their practice, which went under vario ...

who added the north transept and a

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

Architecture

The architectural historian

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

considered that this was "One of the most interesting churches in Blackburn". It is built in stone. The exterior is divided into a grid pattern by

lesene A lesene, also called a pilaster strip, is an architectural term for a narrow, low-relief vertical pillar on a wall. It resembles a pilaster, but does not have a base or capital. It is typical in Lombardic and Rijnlandish architectural building ...

s (

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

s without a base or

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

) and string courses. The west front is

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d and has a gabled porch. Along the sides of the church are two tiers of windows, the upper ones being smaller and narrower than the lower ones. The plan of the church is

cruciform Cruciform is a term for physical manifestations resembling a common cross or Christian cross. The label can be extended to architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly described ...

. It consists of a wide

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

without

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parl ...

s that suddenly contracts into a narrow

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

with a polygonal

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...

. The north transept is five-sided, while the south transept is square. The tower rises from the junction of the nave and the chancel. It is octagonal with a small gable rising from each face, and is surmounted by a spire. Brandwood ''et al'' describe the church as a "curious building", and comment that the tower, arising as it does from the east end of the nave, creates a narrow passage internally, which reduces the view from the nave to the chancel. Inside the church is a west gallery with a late 20th-century screen supported by

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...

columns. The chancel screen is in

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It can ...

style and dates from about 1920. The stained glass in the east window was designed by

Thomas Willement Thomas Willement (18 July 1786 – 10 March 1871) was an English stained glass artist, called "the father of Victorian stained glass", active from 1811 to 1865. Biography Willement was born at St Marylebone, London. Like many early 19th centu ...

and is dated 1838.

References

Citations Sources * * * (Although this is self-published, it is a scholarly work and fully referenced throughout. As of 2011 it is available only as a CD.) * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Blackburn, Mark's Church Church of England church buildings in Lancashire Grade II* listed churches in Lancashire Romanesque Revival church buildings in England 19th-century Church of England church buildings Churches completed in 1887 Diocese of Blackburn Edmund Sharpe buildings Paley and Austin buildings Mark's Church Former churches in Lancashire

History

Architecture

See also

References