The Church of St Wilfrid is in Market Place, Standish,

Wigan Wigan ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, on the River Douglas, Lancashire, River Douglas. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. Bolton lies to the nor ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority, combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: City of Manchester, Manchester, City of Salford, Salford ...

, 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 A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

in 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 Lancast ...

. It 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 I

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 ...

. The authors of the ''

Buildings of England The Pevsner Architectural Guides are a series of guide books to the architecture of Great Britain and Ireland. Begun in the 1940s by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the 46 volumes of the original Buildings of England series were published b ...

'' series describe it as "one of the most interesting churches in Lancashire".

History

The church is first mentioned in 1205 but the vast extent of the ancient parish with its eleven townships ( Adlington,

Anderton Anderton may refer to: People *Anderton (surname) *The Anderton baronets of England Places *Anderton with Marbury, Cheshire *Anderton, Cornwall Anderton is a settlement in south-east Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, located at . There are als ...

Charnock Richard Charnock Richard is a small village and civil parish in the borough of Chorley, Lancashire, in England. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 census was 1,748. History The village was named in the early 13th century by the local ...

Coppull Coppull is a village and civil parish in Lancashire, England. It is part of the Borough of Chorley, lies around above sea level. Its population is around 8,000, having been counted at 7,959 in the 2011 Census. It is bounded by Whittle Brook, Cl ...

Duxbury Duxbury (alternative older spelling: "Duxborough") is a historic seaside town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. A suburb located on the South Shore approximately to the southeast of Boston, the population was 16,090 at the 20 ...

Heath Charnock Heath Charnock is a small village and civil parish of the Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England. According to the United Kingdom Census 2001 it has a population of 2,065, reducing to 2,026 at the 2011 Census. Location Heath Charnock is next ...

, Langtree,

Shevington Shevington is a village and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, England. The population of the Wigan ward called Shevington and Lower Ground had increased to 11,482 at the 2011 Census. Lying within the historic county boun ...

, Standish, Welch Whittle and

Worthington Worthington may refer to: People * Worthington (surname) * Worthington family, a British noble family Businesses * Worthington Brewery, also known as Worthington's * Worthington Corporation, founded as a pump manufacturer in 1845, later a dive ...

) points to a very early foundation. The Pilkington family of Lancashire have a long-standing connection to the church and mention is made in 1322 when Robert, heir of the Pilkington estates and his brother Adam in dispute with John De Dichfield and his brothers was agreed to be settled by the decision of Henry Le Walys, the Chaplain of Standish. The Rector of Standish was Roger Standish in 1477 and was in that year the last surviving trustee of the estates of Alexander Pilkington in Rivington and Mellor. He released the estates to the beneficiary being Roger Pilkington, who was Alexanders grandson on him attaining the age of majority. Roger Pilkington settled at

Rivington Rivington is a village and civil parish of the Borough of Chorley, Lancashire, England, occupying . It is about southeast of Chorley and about northwest of Bolton. Rivington is a rural area consisting primarily of agricultural grazing land, ...

where he made immediate improvements to

Rivington Hall Rivington Hall is a Grade II* listed building in Rivington, Lancashire, England. It was the manor house for the Lords of the Manor of Rivington. The hall is of various builds as successor to a 15th-century timber-framed courtyard house that was ...

. Of the three

chantries A chantry is an ecclesiastical term that may have either of two related meanings: # a chantry service, a Christian liturgy of prayers for the dead, which historically was an obiit, or # a chantry chapel, a building on private land, or an area in ...

inside the Church, the Chantry of the Blessed Virgin Mary was the earliest and was created in 1301, others were added later including the Altar of Our Lady, Chantry at the Altar of St. Nicholas and the Chantry of the Holy Cross otherwise known as the Rood Altar. The chantry at the altar of St Nicholas founded 1478 in the north aisle recorded formerly by a brass plate with an inscription in Latin to the effect that Robert Pylkington had been custodian and chaplain of this chantry and gave to the chantry a yearly revenue of six marks. He died on 6 May 1498. James Nevore was chantry priest at the date of the Commissioners' Report, and the chantry was endowed with land in Rivington, Whittle, Adlington, and Heath Charnock. The lands held at Rivington were purchased from the crown in 1583 by Thurston Anderton and included Higher Knowle farm, Lower Knowle farm and Grut farm, once located opposite the entrance of the current

Rivington and Blackrod High School Rivington and Blackrod High School in the North West region of England is a Leverhulme Trust multi-academy school alongside Harper Green School, it operates as a Church of England teaching environment with a sixth form school. The school is lo ...

. The possession by the Crown was in consequence of the Abolition of Chantries Act 1547. An earlier record of 1574 recovering rents for the same properties to the benefit of the school suggests freehold and leasehold. It is likely the grant of the land dated to the time of the Pilkington endowment in 1478. The present church is believed to have been rebuilt between 1582 and 1584 and designed by Lawrence Shipway.
Lancashire: Liverpool and the Southwest
'. Yale University Press; 2006. . p. 590. It is in a blended

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

and

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

style. During the 20th century the Lancaster architects

Austin and Paley 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 ...

carried out work on the church. In 1913–14 they added

vestries 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 colloquially ...

at the east end of the church, and in 1926 they built a

gatehouse A gatehouse is a type of fortified gateway, an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the mos ...

at the entrance to the churchyard. The gatehouse is listed separately from the church at Grade II. The architects also supervised minor additions and repairs to the church in 1932 and 1939.

Architecture

Exterior

The tower is 19th century

, of grey-black

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

. The prominent spire has an octagonal bell-stage. The remainder of the church is of yellow-black

gritstone Gritstone or grit is a hard, coarse-grained, siliceous sandstone. This term is especially applied to such sandstones that are quarried for building material. British gritstone was used for millstones to mill flour, to grind wood into pulp for pa ...

. The

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 ...

and

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 ...

are

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personifi ...

, from 1582 to 1584. Of the nave,

Simon Jenkins Sir Simon David Jenkins (born 10 June 1943) is a British author, a newspaper columnist and editor. He was editor of the ''Evening Standard'' from 1976 to 1978 and of ''The Times'' from 1990 to 1992. Jenkins chaired the National Trust from 20 ...

, in ''England's Thousand Best Churches'', writes: "The nave arches seem undecided between Gothic and classical. They have tentative columns of a Tuscan order, while the arches above are Gothic, a most strange 'transitional' form."

Interior

Jenkins describes the church as having "... the finest roof in Lancashire, worthy of Somerset's best. This is a Tudor work of panels and cross-braces covering nave, aisles and, most elaborate, the chancel. The vicar has studied the bosses and claims that no two are the same". The pew ends in the Standish family chapel display the family crest of an owl with a rat.

Monuments

The churchyard, which is divided into old and new sections, contains the

war graves War is an intense armed conflict between State (polity), states, governments, Society, societies, or paramilitary groups such as Mercenary, mercenaries, Insurgency, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violenc ...

of four service personnel of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, and nine of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

; most of the graves are in the new section.

References

Citations Sources * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Church of Saint Wilfrid, Standish (section) Churches completed in 1584 16th-century Church of England church buildings Standish Standish English Gothic architecture in Greater Manchester Renaissance architecture in England Austin and Paley buildings Buildings and structures in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan Diocese of Blackburn Standish, Greater Manchester